c 



BODY AND MIND 



BODY AND MIND 

A HISTORY AND A DEFENSE 
OF ANIMISM 



BY 



WILLIAM Mc DOUG ALL, M.B, 

FORMERLY FELLOW OF ST JOHN'S COLLSGB, CAMBSIOGB 
READER IN MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UHIVERSITY OF OXFORD 



WITH THIRTEEN DIAGRAMS 



NEW YORK 

THE MAGMILLAN COMPANY 

1911 



^^v 



" Philosophy may assure us that the account of body and 
mind given by materiahsm is neither consistent nor intelligible. 
Yet body remains the most fundamental and all-pervading fact 
with which mind has got to deal, the one from which it can 
least easily shake itself free, the one that most complacently 
lends itself to every theory destructive of high endeavour." 

A. J. Balfour 

" Even the contrast between corporeal and mental existence 
may not be final and irreconcilable — but our present life is 
passed in a world where it has not yet been resolved, but 
yawning underlies all the relations of our thinking and acting. 
And, even as it will always be indispensable to life, it is, at 
present at least, indispensable to science. Things that appear 
to us incompatible, we must first establish separately each on 
its own foundation. If we have made ourselves acquainted 
with the natural growth and the ramification of each one of 
the groups of phenomena which we have thus discriminated, we 
may afterwards find it possible to speak of their common root. 
To try prematurely to unite them would only mean to obscure 
the survey of them, and to lower the value which every 
distinction possesses even when it may be done away with." 

R. H. LOTZE 

" Quant a I'idee que le corps vivant pourrait etre soumis par 
quelque calculateur surhumain au meme traitement mathe- 
matique que notre systeme solaire, elle est sortie peu a peu 
d'une certaine metaphysique qui a pris une forme plus precise 
depuis les decouvertes physiques de Galilee, mais qui fut toujours 
la metaphysique naturelle de I'esprit humain. Sa clarte appar- 
ente, notre impatient desir de la trouver vraie, I'empressement 
avec laquelle tant d'excellents esprits I'acceptent sans preuve, 
toutes les seductions enfin qu'elle exerce sur notre pensee 
devraient nous mettre en garde contre elle." 

H. Bergson 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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PREFACE 

IN writing this volume my primary aim has been to provide 
for students of psychology and philosophy, within a 
moderate compass, a critical survey of modern opinion 
and discussion upon the psycho-physical problem, the problem 
of the relation between body and mind. But I have tried to 
present my material in a manner not too dry and technical for 
the general reader who is prepared to grapple with a difficult 
subject. For I hold that men of science ought to make 
intelligible to the general public the course and issue of 
scientific discussions upon the wider questions to which their re- 
searches are directed, and that this obligation is especially strong 
in respect of the subject dealt with in these pages. Among the 
great questions debated by philosophers in every age the psycho- 
physical problem occupies a special position, in that it is one in 
which no thoughtful person can fail to be interested ; for any 
answer to this question must have some bearing upon the funda- 
mental doctrines of religion and upon our estimate of man's position 
and destiny in the world. And that interest in this question is 
widespread among the English-reading public, is shown by the 
dense stream of popular books upon it which continues to issue 
from the press both of this country and of the United States. 

The greater part of this book is, then, occupied with a survey 
of modern discussions and modern theories of the psycho-physical 
relation ; but without some knowledge of the course of develop- 
ment of speculation upon this topic it is impossible to understand 
the present state of opinion. I have written, therefore, in the 
earlier chapters a very brief history of the thought of preceding 
ages. This historical sketch makes no pretence of being a work 
of original research ; in putting it together I have relied largely 
upon the standard histories of philosophy and science, especially 
O^^ vii 



viii BODY AND MIND 

the histories of philosophy of Ueberweg, Lewes, and Hoffding, 
F. A. Lange's " History of Materialism," Erwin Rhode's " Psyche," 
Sir Michael Foster's " History of Physiology," the " History of 
European Thought in the Nineteenth Century " of Dr T. Merz, and 
the " Vitalismus als Geschichte und Lehre " of Dr Hans Driesch. 

The history of thought upon the psycho-physical problem is 
in the main the history of the way in which Animism, the oldest 
and, in all previous ages, the most generally accepted answer to it, 
has been attacked and put more and more upon the defensive in 
succeeding centuries, until towards the end of the nineteenth 
century it was generally regarded in academic circles as finally 
driven from the field. I have therefore given to the historical 
chapters the form of a history of Animism. 

The sub-title describes this book as a defence, as well as a 
history, of Animism. I hasten to offer some explanation of this 
description, lest the mere title of the book should repel a con- 
siderable number of possible readers. 

The word Animism is frequently used by contemporary 
writers to denote what is more properly called primitive Animism, 
or primitive Anthropomorphism, namely, the belief that all 
natural objects which seem to exert any power or influence are 
moved or animated by " spirits," or intelligent purposive beings. 
It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that the Animism I defend 
is not of this primitive type. But this is only one variety of 
Animism, one which seems to have been reached by extending the 
essential animistic notion far beyond its original and proper sphere 
of application. The modern currency and usage of the word derives 
chiefly from Prof. Tylor's " Primitive Culture," and I use it with 
the general connotation given it in that celebrated treatise. 
The essential notion, which forms the common foundation of all 
varieties of Animism, is that all, or some, of those manifestations 
of life and mind which distinguish the living man from the 
corpse and from inorganic bodies are due to the operation within 
him of something which is of a nature different from that of the 
body, an animating principle generally, but not necessarily or 
always, conceived as an immaterial and individual being or soul. 

" Primitive Animism " seems to have grown up by extension of 



PREFACE ix 

this notion to the explanation of all the more striking phenomena 
of nature. And the Animism of civilized men, which has been 
and is the foundation of every religious system, except the more 
rigid Pantheisms, is historically continuous with the primitive 
doctrine. But, while religion, superstition, and the hope of a life 
beyond the grave, have kept alive amongst us a variety of 
animistic beliefs, ranging in degree of refinement and subtlety 
from primitive Animism to that taught by Plato, Leibnitz, Lotze, 
William James, or Henri Bergson, modern science and philosophy 
have turned their backs upon Animism of every kind with constantly 
increasing decision ; and the efforts of modern philosophy have been 
largely directed towards the excogitation of a view of man and 
of the world which shall hold fast to the primacy and efficiency 
of mind or spirit, while rejecting the animistic conception of 
human personality. My prolonged puzzling over the psycho- 
physical problem has inclined me to believe that these attempts 
cannot be successfully carried through, and that we must accept 
without reserve Professor Tylor's dictum that Animism " embodies 
the very essence of spiritualistic, as opposed to materialistic, 
philosophy," ^ and that the deepest of all schisms is that which 
divides Animism from Materialism.^ 

The main body of this volume is therefore occupied with the 
presentation and examination of the reasonings which have led 
the great majority of philosophers and men of science to reject 
Animism, and of the modern attempts to render an intelligible 
account of the nature of man which, in spite of the rejection of 
Animism, shall escape Materialism. This survey leads to the con- 
clusion that these reasonings are inconclusive and these attempts 
unsuccessful, and that we are therefore compelled to choose between 
Animism and Materialism ; and, since the logical necessity of 
preferring the animistic horn of this dilemma cannot be in doubt, 
my survey constitutes a defence and justification of Animism. 

I have chosen to use the word Animism rather than any other, 

not only because it clearly marks the historical continuity of the 

modern with the ancient conception, but also because no other 

term indicates precisely all those theories of human personality 

^ " Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 415. 1 Op. cit., p. 502. 



X BODY AND MIND 

which have in common the notion which, as I believe, provides the 
only alternative to Materialism. The word " Spiritualism " as 
used in philosophy is ambiguous, and it has been spoilt for 
scientific purposes by its current usage to denote that popular 
belief which is more properly called Spiritism. Nor is all 
Animism spiritualistic ; during long ages the dominant form of 
it was a materialistic Dualism. The term " psycho-physical 
dualism " accurately expresses the essential animistic notion ; 
but it is cumbrous, and the word Dual'ism is apt to be taken to 
imply metaphysical Dualism, an implication which I am anxious 
to avoid ; for Animism does not necessarily imply metaphysical 
Dualism, or indeed any metaphysical or ontological doctrine, and 
may logically be held in conjunction with a monistic metaphysic, 
or indeed with any metaphysical doctrine, Solipsism alone ex- 
cepted. The expression " psycho-physical interactionism " will 
not serve my purpose, because (as we see in the philosophy of 
Leibnitz, and in that modification of the Cartesian system known 
as Occasionalism) Animism may be combined with the denial of 
psycho-physical interaction. Again, the term " soul-theory " does 
not cover all varieties of Animism, in illustration of which state- 
ment I may remind the reader that the late Prof. James advocated 
a distinctly animistic view of human personality, which he called 
the " transmission theory," but explicitly rejected the conception 
of the soul as a unitary and individual being. 

The reader may perhaps be helped to grasp the long argu- 
ment of the book, if I make here a summary statement of its 
course. The first six chapters trace in outline through the 
European culture-tradition, from primitive ages to the present 
time, the history of Animism and of the attacks upon it from the 
sides of metaphysic, epistemology, and the natural sciences, and 
they indicate the principal doctrines proposed as alternatives to it. 
Chapters VII., VIII., IX., and X. display the grounds on which at 
the present day the rejection of Animism is generally founded. 
It is shown that, although in former ages the psycho- physical 
problem has generally been regarded as one to be solved by 
metaphysic, it is now widely recognized that the issue must be 
decided by the methods of empirical science ; and it is shown how 



PREFACE xi 

the modern rejection of Animism finds its principal ground in the 
claim of the physical sciences that their mechanical principles of 
explanation must hold exclusive sway throughout the universe, a 
claim which I venture to characterize as " the mechanistic dogma." 

Chapters XI. and XII. state, examine, and display the 
special difficulties of, the more important of the monistic 
doctrines proposed as substitutes for Animism. The least un- 
satisfactory of these are closely allied, and in accordance with 
current usage are classed together under the head of psycho- 
physical Parallelism. In Chapter XIII. it is shown that the 
choice of Parallelism or Animism is a dilemma from which we 
cannot escape, unless indeed we are prepared to adopt all the 
absurdities of thoroughgoing Materialism or of Solipsism. 

Chapters XIV., XV., and XVI. examine the modern 
arguments against Animism, and show that no one of them, nor 
all of them together, logically necessitate its rejection. 

Chapters XVII. to XXIV. exhibit the inadequacy of the 
mechanical principles to the explanation of the facts of general 
physiology, of biological evolution, of human and animal 
behaviour, and of psychology, and bring forward certain positive 
arguments in favour of Animism. 

Chapter XXV. states my attitude towards the work of the 
Society for Psychical Research, and shows how, as it seems to 
me, the results hitherto achieved by that line of investigation 
strengthen the case against the " mechanistic dogma." 

In the last chapter I have tried to draw together the threads 
of the argument, and regarding the " mechanistic dogma " (the 
only serious objection to Animism) as discredited, I have weighed 
the claims of the principal varieties of Animism in a discussion 
which results in favour of the hypothesis of the soul. Finally, I 
have endeavoured to indicate a view of the nature of the soul 
which shall be in harmony with all the facts established by 
empirical science, 

I am aware that to many minds it must appear nothing short 
of a scandal that anyone occupying a position in an academy of 
learning, other than a Roman Catholic seminary, should in this 
twentieth century defend the old-world notion of the soul of man. 



xii BODY AND MIND 

For it is matter of common knowledge that " Science " has given 
its verdict against the soul, has declared that the conception of 
the soul as a thing, or being, or substance, or mode of existence 
or activity, different from, distinguishable from, or in any sense or 
degree independent of, the body is a mere survival from primitive 
culture, one of the many relics of savage superstition that 
obstinately persist among us in defiance of the clear teachings of 
modern science. The greater part of the philosophic world also, 
mainly owing to the influence of the natural sciences, has arrived 
at the same conclusion. In short, it cannot be denied that, as 
William James told us at Oxford three years ago, " souls are out 
of fashion." 

But I am aware also that not one in a hundred of those 
scientists and philosophers who confidently and even scornfully 
reject the notion has made any impartial and thorough attempt 
to think out the psycho-physical problem in the light of all the 
relevant data now available and of the history of previous thought 
on the question. And I am young enough to believe that there 
is amongst us a considerable number of persons who prefer the 
dispassionate pursuit of truth to the interests of any system, and 
to hope that some of them may find my book acceptable as an 
honest attempt' to grapple once more with this central problem. 
And I am fortified by the knowledge that a few influential 
contemporary philosophers adhere to the animistic conception of 
human personality, or at least regard the psycho-physical question 
as still open, as also by certain indications that the " mechanistic 
dogma " no longer holds the scientific world in so close a grip as 
during the later part of the nineteenth century. 

" Animism," writes Professor Tylor, " is, in fact, the ground- 
work of the Philosophy of Religion, from that of savages up to 
that of civilized men." ^ And, though modern Pantheisms have 
generally rejected Animism, the statement remains substantially 
correct. And it must be admitted that most of those who have 
defended Animism in the modern period have been openly or 
secretly moved by the desire to support religious doctrines 
^ " Primitive Culture," i. p. 426. 



PREFACE xiii 

which they have accepted on other than scientific grounds. It 
follows that anyone who undertakes to defend the theory is 
liable to be suspected of a bias of this kind. 

These considerations are my apology for setting down here 
a personal confession, which may aid the reader in judging 
of the nature and degree of any bias that may have affected 
my presentation of the arguments for and against Animism. 
I believe that the future of religion is intimately bound up 
with the fate of Animism ; and especially I believe that, if 
science should continue to maintain the mechanistic dogma, 
and consequently to repudiate Animism, the belief in any form 
of life after the death of the body will continue rapidly to 
decline among all civilized peoples, and will, before many genera- 
tions have passed away, become a negligible quantity. Never- 
theless, I claim that the discussions of the following pages are 
conducted with as much impartiality as is possible for one to whom 
the argument seems to point strongly towards one of the rival 
hypotheses. For I can lay claim to no religious convictions ; I am 
not aware of any strong desire for any continuance of my person- 
ality after death ; and I could accept with equanimity a thorough- 
going Materialism, if that seemed to me the inevitable outcome 
of a dispassionate and critical reflection. Nevertheless, I am 
in sympathy with the religious attitude towards life ; and I 
should welcome the establishment of sure empirical founda- 
tions for the belief that human personality is not wholly de- 
stroyed by death. For, as was said above, I judge that this belief 
can only be kept alive if a proof of it, or at least a presumption 
in favour of it, can be furnished by the methods of empirical 
science. And it seems to me highly probable that the passing 
away of this belief would be calamitous for our civilization. 
For every vigorous nation seems to have possessed this belief, 
and the loss of it has accompanied the decay of national vigour 
in many instances. 

Apart from any hope of rewards or fear of punishment after 
death, the belief must have, it seems to me, a moralizing influence 
upon our thought and conduct that we can ill afford to dispense 
with. The admirable Stoic attitude of a Marcus Aurelius or a 



xiv BODY AND MIND 

Huxley may suffice for those who rise to it in the moral environ- 
ment created by civilizations based upon a belief in a future life 
and upon other positive religious beliefs ; but I gravely doubt 
whether whole nations could rise to the level of an austere morality, 
or even maintain a decent working standard of conduct, after 
losing those beliefs. A proof that our life does not end with 
death, even though we knew nothing of the nature of the life 
beyond the grave, would justify the belief that we have our share 
in a larger scheme of things than the universe described by physical 
science ; and this conviction must add dignity, seriousness, and 
significance to our lives, and must thus throw a great weight 
into the scale against the dangers that threaten every advanced 
civilization. While, then, I should prefer for myself a confident 
anticipation of total extinction at death to a belief that I must 
venture anew upon a life of whose nature and conditions we 
have no knowledge, I desire, on impersonal grounds, to see the 
world-old belief in a future life established on a scientific founda- 
tion. To that extent, and to that extent only, I think, my 
inquiry is biassed. 

Finally, I wish to state emphatically that my inquiry is not 
conceived as a search for metaphysical truth, but that it is rather 
conducted by the methods and with the aims of all empirical 
science ; that is to say, it aims at discovering the hypotheses 
which Vv^ill enable us best to co-ordinate the chaotic data of 
immediate experience by means of a conceptual system as con- 
sistent as may be, while recognizing that such conceptions must 
always be subject to revision with the progress of science. 
Of course, if the term metaphysic be taken in the older sense 
as implying an inquiry into that which is not physical, the theme of 
this work is metaphysical ; but that is a usage which is no longer 
accepted ; metaphysic is now distinguished from empirical science 
by its aims and methods rather than by its subject-matter. I 
claim, then, for the conception of the soul, advocated in the 
last chapter of this book, no more than that it is an hypothesis 
which is indispensable to science at the present time. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 

PAGES 

Primitive Animism or Anthropomorphism — The ghost-soul — Burial customs — Origin 
of ghost-soul — Ghost-soul not immaterial — Extension of original idea of soul 
— Survivals of ghost-soul — Hebrew Animism — Homeric Animism — -The Ionian 
physicists — Post-Homeric Animism — Greek Materialism — Plato — Aristotle 
— Stoicism and Scepticism ....... 1-27 

CHAPTER II 

ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

Pneuma — Materialistic Animism of early Fathers — Spiritualisation of the soul — 

Neoplatonism — The Schoolmen — Averroism — Roman Materialism . . 28-38 

CHAPTER III 

ANIMISM AT THE TIME OF THE RENASCENCE OF LEARNING 

Pomponazzi — Vives — Telesio — Bruno — Physiology founded — Vesalius and Van 

Helmont .......... 39-45 

CHAPTER IV 

ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

Rise of modern Materialism — Descartes — Occasionalism — Leibnitz — Spinoza — 

Hobbes .......... 46-60 

CHAPTER V 

ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

The attack on "Substance" — Locke leads the attack — His dualism — The Deists — 
Bishop Berkeley's idealism — Hume's scepticism — The Wollfian rationalism 
dominant on the Continent — French materialism of the "Enlightenment" — 
Kant's reconciliation of Spiritualism with Materialism — The Vitalists . 61-78 

CHAPTER VI 

ANIMISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

The romantic speculation — Reaction against it — The modern phase of psycho- 
physical discussion introduced by Fechner — Modern defenders of Animism 
in Germany, France, Great Britain, and America .... 79-86 

XV 



xvi BODY AND MIND 

CHAPTER VII 

MODERN DEVELOPMENTS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE ADVERSE 
TO ANIMISM 



PAGES 



Solipsism unacceptable — The psycho-physical problem to be dealt with by methods of 

empirical science — Kinetic mechanism — The law of the conservation of energy 87-93 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY AND OF THE 
" PSYCHOLOGY WITHOUT A SOUL " 

Hylozoism of the " Enlightment" — Vitalists — Mechanical explanations of vital pro- 
cesses confidently assumed— The search for the seat of the soul fails — The 
doctrine of the reflex type of all nervous process — Unconscious cerebration — 
The association-psychology andthe law of habit — The dependence of thought 
on integrity of brain-functions — The law of psycho-neural correlation — The 
composite nature of the mind ....... 94-ii£ 



CHAPTER IX 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY 

Lamarckism — Neo-Darwinism— Organic adaptations mechanically explained — No 
need for teleology— Continuity of evolution — Interment of Animism by 
Tyndall .......... 119-121 

CHAPTER X 

CURRENT PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 

Inconceivability of psycho-physical interaction — Variants of the inconceivability 
argument — Immediate knowledge of consciousness, but not of the soul — 
Rapprochement of science and philosophy on basis of Monism . . 122-125 

CHAPTER XI 

THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 

Epiphenomenalism — Its " energetic " variant — Psycho-physical Parallelism proper — 
Phenomenalistic Parallelism — Psychical Monism as expounded by Paulsen, 
Strong, Clifford, and Fechner — Fechner's "proof" of the sub-conscious — 
Fechner's " day-view " of nature — Continuity of evolution — Psychical Monism 
compatible with scientific Materialism — Its many advantages . . . 122-148 



CONTENTS xvii 

CHAPTER XII 

EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON-THEORIES AND OF THE SPECIAL 
ARGUMENTS IN THEIR FAVOUR 

PAGES 

Epiphenomenalism combines the difficulties of materialism and of interaction — 
Parallelism proper must go on to accept the identity hypothesis in one or 
other of its two forms — The " two-aspect doctrine " meaningless — Therefore 
" Psychical Monism" the only form of Parallelism deserving of serious con- 
sideration—The difficulty of doing without " things "^ — My self is not my 
consciousness, but rather the sum of enduring conditions which we call the 
structure of the mind — Difficulties of the compounding of consciousnesses — 
Difficulties common to all forms of Parallelism — Universal consciousness — 
It necessitates assumption of unconscious consciousness — Parallelism of 
mechanical sequences with the logical and teleological . . . 149-178 

CHAPTER XIII 

IS THERE ANY WAY OF ESCAPE FROM THE DILEMMA — ANIMISM OR 
PARALLELISM ? 

The acceptance of "idealism" does not absolve us from the psycho-physical 
problem — Kant neither resolved nor dissolved the problem— Three attitudes 
towards it of Post-Kantians, represented by Parallelism of Paulsen, the 
ambiguity of Lange, and the transubjective Idealism of Ward — The last 
implies Animism as hypothesis necessary to natural science . . . 179-188 

CHAPTER XIV 

ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 

Proposed dualism of science and philosophy^A calculable universe — Animism does 
not necessarily imply metaphysical Dualism or Pluralism — Parallelism admits 
only pantheistic religion — Parallelism incompatible with belief in any continu- 
ance of personality after death — Fechner, Kant, and Paulsen fail to reconcile 
the mechanistic dogma with human immortality— High authorities for and 
against Animism ......... 189-205 

CHAPTER XV 

EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM FROM EPISTEMOLOGY, 
"inconceivability," AND THE LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY 

Necessity of giving all scientific explanation the mechanical form not proved — 
Guidance without work— Various possibilities — Argument from conservation 
of energy describes a circle — Difficulty of defining the " physical " — Immediate 
awareness not the highest type of knowledge ..... 206-223 

CHAPTER XVI 

EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM DRAWN FROM 
PHYSIOLOGY AND GENERAL BIOLOGY 

Inadequate conceptions of interaction alone give plausibility to arguments from 
cerebral physiology — Continuity of evolution a postulate—But, if accepted, 
not fatal to Animism — Statistics and teleology — Abiogenesis . . . 224-234 



xviii BODY AND MIND 

CHAPTER XVII 

THE INADEQUACY OF MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS IN PHYSIOLOGY 

PAGES 

Last half-century has done nothing to justify physiological materialism — The 
impossibility of mechanistic explanation of morphogenesis and heredity — 
Experimental embryology, restitution, and regeneration — Organisms and 
machines — Organisms and the degradation of energy .... 235-245 

CHAPTER XVIII 

INADEQUACY OF MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES TO EXPLAIN ORGANIC EVOLUTION 

Neo-Darwinism based on mechanistic assumption in regard to heredity — Natural 
selection implies the struggle for existence — Difficulties of Neo-Darwinism — 
Diminished by " organic selection " — But this is a teleological principle — Muta- 
tions not fortuitous — Regeneration not explicable on Darwinian principles — 
Resuscitation of Vitalism — Appendix on organic selection . . . 246-257 

CHAPTER XIX 

INADEQUACY OF MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS TO EXPLAIN 
ANIMAL AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR 

The " total reactions" of animalcules are not tropisms — Persistence and " trial and 
error" among the lowest animals — Purely instinctive actions initiated by per- 
ceptions which involve mental synthesis — Instinctive actions co-operating with 
intelligence imply more extensive synthesis — Meaning and purpose as factors 
in instinctive behaviour — Human instincts — "Meaning" is an essential link 
between sense-impression and reaction — Values .... 258-271 

CHAPTER XX 

THE ARGUMENT TO PSYCHO-PHYSICAL INTERACTION FROM 
THE "DISTRIBUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS" 

Darwinism implies the usefulness of consciousness — And not merely of infra-con- 
sciousness, but of integrated personal .consciousness — True consciousness 
accompanies not all nervous processes, but only those which result in modifi- 
cation .......... 272-280 

CHAPTER XXI 

THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

Two lines of argument — The metaphysical (Lotze) valid, but not capable of con- 
vincing — The physiological — The sensorium comnncne, variously conceived — 
All these conceptions untenable — No physical medium of composition of effects 
of sense-stimuli— Some medium -demanded by our intellect — Why refuse to 
trust it? — Fechner's doctrine of the threshold and of psycho-physical con- 
tinuity — The facts of sensory " fusion " incompatible with Parallelism, however 
stated — Multiple personality ....... 281-300 



CONTENTS xix 

CHAPTER XXII 

THE PSYCHO-PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 

PAGES 

The association-psychology ignored "meaning" — But without meaning "ideas" 
are meaningless — The doctrine of the "psychic fringe" — Spatial meanings 
are not identical with clusters of kinaesthetic sensations — Sensations are 
merely cues to meanings — And meanings are relatively independent of sensa- 
tions and have no physical parallels ...... 301-311 

CHAPTER XXIII 

PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 

The facts of feeling-tone — Feeling has no immediate correlate among the brain- 
processes — Yet feeling determines the trend of thought and action — Feeling 
and the establishment of associations — Feeling and evolution — The 
peculiarities of conative process have no physical analogues . . . 312-329 

CHAPTER XXIV 

MEMORY 

Parallelism implies that all mental retention can be described in terms of brain- 
structure — The fantastic ' ' memory-cell"— Motor-habit the type of all retention 
founded in brain-structure — But true memory cannot be identified with habit 
— The law of neural association as generally stated is false — All remembering 
involves co-operation of two factors, habit and true memory — Suggestion 
towards a theory of memory ....... 330-346 

CHAPTER XXV 

THE BEARING OF THE RESULTS OF " PSYCHICAL RESEARCH " 
ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PROBLEM 

The search for empirical evidence of survival — Telepathy seems to be established — 
Hypernormal control of bodily by mental processes — Post-hypnotic apprecia- 
tion of time ......... 347-354 

CHAPTER XXVI 

CONCLUSION 

Animism preferable to Parallelism — Four varieties of Animism — The animistic 
" actuelle Seele " — The transmission theory of James and Bergson — The 
objections to the soul-theory flimsy, if psycho-physical interaction is accepted 
— The contentless soul — The soul a developing system of psychical disposi- 
tions — Multiple personalities are of two kinds, both consistent with the soul- 
theory — The vegetative functions of the soul — The soul-theory and organic 
evolution .......... 355-379 

Index . . . . . . . . . . . 381-384 



BODY AND MIND 

CHAPTER I 
ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 

IT would seem that from a very remote period men of almost 
all races have entertained the belief that the living man 
differs from the corpse in that his body contains some 
more subtle thing or principle which determines its purposive 
movements, its growth and self-repair, and to which is due his 
capacity for sensation, thought, and feeling. For the belief in 
some such animating principle, or soul, is held by almost every 
existing race of men, no matter how lowly their grade of culture 
nor how limited their mental powers ; and we find evidences of 
a similar belief among the earliest human records. 

Among the more highly civilized peoples, the soul has generally 
been regarded by the more cultured members of each community 
as an immaterial being or agency ; but the distinction between 
material and immaterial things was only achieved after long ages 
of discussion and by many steps of refinement of the conception 
of the soul. The belief most widely current among the peoples 
of lower culture is that each man consists, not only of the body 
which is constantly present among his fellows, but also of a 
shadowy vapour-like duplicate of his body ; this shadow-like 
image, the animating principle of the living organism, is thought 
to be capable of leaving the body, of transporting itself rapidly, 
if not instantaneously, from place to place, and of manifesting 
in those places all or most of the powers that it exerts in the 
body during waking life. Sleep is regarded as due to its 
temporary withdrawal from the body ; trance, coma, and other 
serious illness, as due to longer absence ; and death is thought 
to imply its final departure to some distant place. 

That this belief is a very real one among many peoples, is 
shown by their careful observance of customs in which it finds 



2 BODY AND MIND 

expression. Thus, among some of the peoples who entertain this 
belief, it is customary to avoid wakening a sleeper, lest his wander- 
ing soul should not return to him ; and, if it becomes absolutely 
necessary to waken him, it is done as gradually as possible, in 
order that his soul may have time to find its way back to the body. 
Or again, the friends of a sick person will procure a medicine-man, 
who, falling into trance, will send /his soul after the retreating soul, 
to arrest it if possible on its journey toward the land of the dead, 
and to lead it back to the body of the patient. And after death 
the friends or relatives will take all possible measures to aid the 
departing soul .on its journey, and to promote its welfare in the 
land of shades, where it is believed to lead a life very much like 
that of its embodied state in this world. ^ 

The burial customs of many peoples afford the best evidence 
that the disembodied soul is conceived as like in all essential 
respects to the living whole of soul and body. The widespread 
custom of killing slaves or wives on the death of a man of some 
importance is an expression of the belief that the souls of the, 
victims will accompany his soul and will continue to serve it as 
they served him before death. And the even more widely spread 
custom of burying or burning with the body of the dead man his 
most valued possessions, especially weapons and ornaments, is due 
to the belief that even these things have their shadowy duplicates 
or ghost-souls, which can be carried away by the departing soul 
and used by it as the real objects were used by the living man. 

Professor E. B. Tylor first clearly expounded this primitive 
conception of the ghost-soul, showed its wide distribution in space 
and time, and illustrated with a wealth of detail its many varia- 
tions, in his celebrated chapters on Animism ; '^ and there can be 
no reasonable doubt that he has given the true account of its 
origin, in attributing it in the main to reflection upon the experi- 
ences of dreams and visions, in conjunction with the objectively 
observed facts of sleep, trance, and death. In sleep, while the 
body lies at rest, the sleeper remains unconscious of the surround- 
ings of his body ; he seems to himself to visit other scenes, to 
meet and converse with other persons, and to have the use in 
these dream-adventures of his dress and weapons. In visions and 

^ Among the Kayans of Borneo, for example, it is the custom for arj elderly 
person learned in such matters to sit beside the corpse, where the soul\is sup- 
posed to hover for some days after death, and to impart to the latter minute 
directions for its journey to the land of the dead. 

2 •' Primitive Culture," first edition, London, 1871 ; especially chap. xi. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 3 

in dreams he sees, too, the shadowy forms of dead friends. Since, 
then, most savages regard their dream-experiences as equally real 
with those of waking life, they naturally and inevitably arrive at 
the theory that the ghost-self, which in dreams can appear in 
distant places, leaving the deserted body in death-like stillness, 
is identical with the animating principle. 

It is sometimes said that primitive man conceives the ghost- 
soul as material ; while Professor Tylor describes it as a spiritual- 
istic conception. But to describe the primitive ghost-soul as 
either matter or spirit is misleading ; if these terms are to be 
applied to it, we must describe it as a material spirit. This is, 
of course, a contradiction in terms, which we can only resolve by 
recognizing that the peoples who believe in the ghost-soul have 
not achieved the comparatively modern distinction between 
material and immaterial or spiritual existents. It is clear that 
the ghost-soul is generally conceived as having many of the pro- 
perties of matter, and as having the same needs as the embodied 
soul, as subject to the pains of cold and heat, of hunger and thirst, 
and as being bound, though less strictly than the body, by con- 
ditions of space and matter. This quasi-materiality of the 
ghost-soul is well illustrated by the custom, observed among 
many peoples, of making a hole in the roof or wall of the death- 
chamber for the exit of the departing soul, or by that of sinking 
a bamboo tube through the earth above the buried corpse in order 
to allow the soul to revisit it. 

Two things seem chiefly to have determined the form of the 
primitive belief as to the substance of the ghost-soul, namely, the 
shadow and the breath. Each man's shadow is an impalpable 
something which has a certain likeness to the man, and which 
accompanies him when actively employed, but which disappears 
when he lies down in sleep or death. And the breath that comes 
and goes from his nostrils seems bound up with his life, and dis- 
appears at death. In some regions the new-born babe is held to 
the mouth of a dying person, in order to receive his escaping soul 
or breath. And language clearly shows the important part 
played by the ideas of the shadow and of the breath in such 
words as manes and shade, spirit, spiritus, anima^ anivius, pneuma, 
and in similar words of many other languages. 

The conception of the ghost-soul cannot be better defined 
than in the following words of Professor Tylor, from whose 
classical account the foregoing brief description has been con- 



4 BODY AND MIND 

densed. He writes: "It is a thin, unsubstantial human image, 
in its nature a sort of vapour, film, or shadow ; the cause of life 
and thought in the individual it animates ; independently possess- 
ing the personal consciousness and volition of its corporeal 
owner, past or present ; capable of leaving the body far behind, 
to flash swiftly from place to place ; mostly impalpable and 
invisible, yet also manifesting physical power, and especially 
appearing to men waking or asleep as a phantasm separate from 
the body of which it bears the likeness ; continuing to exist and 
appear to men after the death of that body ; able to enter into, 
possess, and act in the bodies of other men, of animals, and even 
of things." 1 

Since the publication of "Primitive Culture," the origin of 
Animism has been the subject of much discussion and con- 
troversy ; but in their main outlines Dr Tylor's account of the 
ghost-soul, and his theory of the genesis of the idea, seem to 
remain unshaken. Mr Andrew Lang has urged that waking 
hallucinations or apparitions (in common phrase, the seeing of 
ghosts) may have played an important part in developing the 
idea. Mr R. R. Marett ^ and others have attempted to describe 
a pre-animistic conception, which attributed an ill-defined power 
or virtue to all things that evoked awe in the mind of primitive 
man ; it is suggested that this notion was the common matrix from 
which ideas of the souls of men, animals, and plants, anthropo- 
morphic conceptions of natural forces, the ideas of gods and demons, 
in fact, all ideas of spiritual existences, have been differentiated. 
These are interesting suggestions which, in so far as they are 
accepted (and to me a strong case seems to be made out for both 
views), are to be regarded as supplementing Dr Tylor's doctrine, 
rather than as conflicting with it.^ 

^ " Primitive Culture," third edition, vol. i. p. 429. 

2 " The Threshold of Religion," London, 1908. 

® More recently Mr A. E. Crawley has published a work (" The Idea of 
the Soul ") in which he claims to have completely refuted Dr Tylor's theory 
of the origin of the ghost -soul, and to have established a rival. To my 
mind the weight of the arguments brought forward against Dr Tylor's view 
is a negligible quantity, and the hypothesis proposed as an alternative seems 
highly improbable. Mr Crawley maintains that the visual images of waking 
life are the source from which primitive man derived his ideas of the souls of 
men and things. Though this view cannot be seriously entertained as a sub- 
stitute for Dr Tylor's theory, it may, I think, be regarded as supplementing it, 
by drawing attention to a factor which may have played some considerable part 
in the genesis of the ghost-soul, and which, perhaps, has not been sufficiently 
taken into account. The tendency to visualize our dead friends, when we think 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 5 

The ascription by primitive men of ghost-souls to animals, 
plants, and inert objects, is probably regarded as an extension 
of the theory first arrived at by reflection on the problem 
of human life. Such extension was rendered almost inevitable 
by the fact that persons met in dreams and visions, as well as the 
dreamer himself, seem to have about them their dogs, their 
weapons, their dress, and other material objects. It seems 
probable also that the ghost-soul of man was the first definite 
conception of personal intelligent powers, living and working in 
detachment from ordinary solid matter and all the narrow 
limitations of embodied existence. If so, the developments of 
ideas of other powers of a similar, but non-human, nature, 
demons, gods, spirits good and evil of all sorts, must have been 
in large degree merely extensions and differentiations of this 
fundamental notion of the human ghost-soul. ^ 

In various ages and places many variants of this primitive 
conception of the ghost-soul have been held ; some savages, for 
example, agree with certain philosophers of classical antiquity in 
assigning to each man two, three, or even four souls of different 
functions. But the diversities of the opinions of uncultured 
peoples on this great subject are far less striking than the 
_ uniformities ; and the theory of the ghost-soul is so widely 
distributed throughout all regions of the world, and gives so 
natural and satisfactory explanations of so many facts that force 
themselves upon the attention of men of every grade of culture, 
that we may suppose it to have been independently reached by 
many peoples. So concordant is it with the way of thinking of 
unsophisticated mankind, that it has lived on up to the present 
day in the popularly accepted traditions of almost all the peoples 
of the world ; and every feature of the primitive conception is 
illustrated by practices and beliefs still current among the most 
highly civilized peoples of Europe. Even the belief in the 
materiality of the soul still finds expression in the custom of 
opening the door or window of the death-chamber to give free 
egress to the departing soul,^ and in the German superstition ^ 



of them, is strong in most of us, and perhaps stronger in the men of primitive 
culture than in others. And this tendency may well have facilitated the develop- 
ment of the notion of the ghost-soul by reflection upon the facts of sleep, dream, 
trance, and death. 

^ This is the view forcibly defended by Prof. W. Wundt in his Volker-psycho- 
logie (second edition, vol. iv. part i.), Leipzig, 1910. 

" " Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 454. * Ibid., vol. i. p. 455. 



6 BODY AND MIND 

that the ghost-soul of a mother who dies in child-birth will return 
to suckle the infant and will leave the impress of its weight upon 
the bed. 

The history of Animism throughout the course of the develop- 
ment of European civilization affords one of the most striking 
illustrations of the law that, in every civilized community, two 
streams of tradition, two strata of belief and custom, persist side 
by side, influencing one another, but never fusing : namely, the 
stream of popular tradition and the literary tradition of the 
cultured few. 

Throughout the development of European civilization, 
popular beliefs regarding the nature and destiny of the human 
soul have remained vague, diversified, and fluctuating. Although, 
amid all changes, the primitive conception of the ghost -soul 
has persisted in the popular mind, for just the same reasons as 
have led to its independent adoption by so many savage peoples ; 
it has been modified in various ways, and partially overlaid and 
obscured, by the teachings of the leaders of religious, philoso- 
phical, and scientific thought. The elements taken up by the 
popular tradition from these sources have been for the most part 
logically incompatible with the theory of the ghost-soul ; and this 
incompatibility has no doubt played a principal part in preventing, 
within the stream of popular tradition, the formation of any 
definite and generally accepted notion, and in maintaining in every 
age among large numbers of the people a sceptical or negative 
attitude towards the doctrine of a future life. 

The further civilization has progressed, the more chaotic has the 
state of popular opinion upon this great question become ; until, 
at the present time, there is current among us almost every 
variety of opinion and belief that the foregoing generations have 
excogitated. 

To attempt to trace the devious and many-branched course 
of the muddy stream of popular tradition would be a hopeless 
task. In the following pages I am concerned only with the 
history of Animism in the culture-tradition. I have to attempt 
to show how, starting with primitive Animism, the culture- 
tradition has successively modified it and refined it ; until at the 
present day the venerable doctrine seems to be on the point 
of being finally dismissed to the anthropologists' museum of 
curiosities. 

The principal influences that differentiated the Animism of 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 7 

the culture-tradition from primitive Animism, and set it upon its 
long and troubled course, were: (i) the teachings of the Hebrew 
prophets ; (2) the speculations of the theologians and philosophers 
of ancient Greece ; and (3) the efforts of the Christian fathers, 
influenced by the culture-tradition of the ancient Greek world 
as well as by that of the Hebrews, to set up a consistent and 
generally acceptable doctrine of the soul among the dogmas of 
the Church. The operation of these influences will be briefly 
traced in the present and in the following chapter. 

\The primitive Hebrew conception of the soul was essentially 
the same as the ghost-soul of so many other peoples. As the 
Rev. Prof Charles points out,^ we must distinguish the 
earlier from the later view expressed in the Old Testament. 
According to the earlier view, " man consists of two elements, 
spirit or soul and body " ; " the soul is the seat of feeling and 
desire, and, in a secondary degree, of the intelligence, and is 
identified with the personality " ; the soul leaves the body at 
death (though, as by so many other peoples, it was thought of as 
hovering in its neighbourhood for some time after death) to pass 
to the dark underworld of the souls of the dead, Sheol. " The 
relations and customs of earth were reproduced in Sheol. Thus 
the prophet was distinguished by his mantle, kings by their 
crowns and thrones, the uncircumcised by his foreskin. Each 
nation also preserved its individuality, and no doubt its national 
garb and customs. . . . Indeed the departed were regarded as 
reproducing exactly the same features as marked them at the 
moment of death." And the ghost-souls of ancestors were 
believed to have knowledge of their descendants and to benefit 
from their ministrations. Under the teaching of the prophets 
and the development of Monotheism, the spirit began to be dis- 
tinguished from the soul ; and, while the soul remained as the 
vital principle of the body and as the seat of all the mental 
activities, it was not conceived as surviving the death of the body 
— " in death the soul is extinguished and only the spirit survives. 
But since the spirit is only the impersonal force of life common 
to men and brutes, it returns to the Fount of all life, and thus all 
personal existence ceases at death." " In the above threefold 
division of man's personality the spirit and soul are distinct alike 

^ " A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, 
and in Christianity," by R. H. Charles, D.D. 



8 BODY AND MIND 

in essence and origin. The former is the impersonal basis of life 
coming from God, and returning on death to God. The latter, 
which is the personal factor in man, is simply the supreme 
function of the quickened body, and perishes on the withdrawal 
of the spirit." Hence, according to this later view, the soul is 
annihilated at the death of the body, and " Sheol, the abode of the 
souls, became a synonym of Abaddon or destruction." But, says 
Prof Charles, " this doctrine never succeeded in dispossessing 
the older and rival doctrine ; their conflicting views of soul and 
spirit were current together " ^ ; that is to say, the primitive con- 
ception of the ghost-soul lived on among the Hebrews alongside 
the later developed and, doubtless, less popular, because more 
difficult, conception. 

Just as among the Hebrews the notion of the ghost-soul 
continued to be widely entertained, in spite of the teaching by 
the prophets of a more difficult conception of human personality ; 
so also among the Greeks the ghost-soul retained its place in 
popular belief, while the philosophers developed a literary tradition 
in which the conception of the soul underwent many changes, 
and in which almost every phase of later speculation upon this 
topic was either foreshadowed or definitely taught. 

The pages of Homer show clearly enough that the Greeks of 
the Homeric age believed in the ghost-soul. But their conception 
differed markedly in certain respects from the typical ghost-soul 
of primitive Animism and of so many savage and barbarous 
peoples in all ages. The typical ghost-soul enjoys all the powers, 
both bodily and mental, of the living man, and differs from the 
man chiefly in being less substantial and less strictly subject to 
limitations of time and space ; but the ghost-soul of the Homeric 
Greeks, the eidolon (i'/duXov) or psyche (-^v-)!^/!), was not conceived 
as the bearer of the mental faculties, or at least not as enjoying 
the whole of the mental faculties of the living man. It was 
rather a shadowy image merely, which leaves the body of the 
dying man by way of the mouth or gaping wound ; and this 
shadow or shade, descending to Hades, enjoyed but the shadow of 
its former life and powers. The strength and will, the intellect 
and mental powers in general, were supposed to reside in the 
region of the diaphragm and to be dissolved or annihilated at 
the death of the body. Disembodied minds were unknown to 

^ Op. cit., p. 44. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 9 

the Greeks of this age ; even their gods lived upon the earth, and 
were fully incarnate in bodies which differed from those of men 
only in that they were subject to neither disease nor death. 

The shades, once banished to Hades, were strictly imprisoned 
there ; and thus the Homeric world was freed from the terror of 
ghosts that has haunted, and still haunts, almost all other peoples. 
And the cult of the dead had no recognized place in that world ; 
for the dead were incapable of influencing the living for good or ill. 

It is clear, then, that the Homeric Greeks had departed widely 
from primitive Animism ; that they had modified it in a way 
natural to their vigorous, joyous, and but little religious dis- 
position, in a period of national expansion and victorious self- 
assertion. 

There is no reason to doubt that at an earlier period Animism 
of the more usual kind had been current among them ; traces 
of this, and of the cult of the dead appropriate to it, survive in the 
story of Achilles and Patroclus and of the funeral sacrifices of 
wine, sheep, oxen, horses, and Trojan youths. These seem to 
have been but ceremonial survivals of a cult of souls that had 
prevailed in an earlier age, when souls were dreaded for their 
active powers of intervention in human life.^ 

There appears in the Homeric writings a foretaste of that 
tendency to the reification of abstractions which was to play so 
great a part in the philosophy of later ages. The psyche is 
sometimes identified with life ; and the mental powers, regarded 
as resident in the region of the diaphragm, are sometimes attri- 
buted to the 6u[/.og, or jSovXri, entities which, though belonging to 
the body, are not identified with any bodily organs. 

The continuance of the ghost-soul in Hades did not constitute 
a survival of personality ; for to the Greeks of this age the body 
was an essential part of personality. Nevertheless there appears 
in Homer, possibly as a late addition, the belief in the immortality 
of a favoured few. This immortality was not an immortality of 
the soul alone, but rather of the whole person, who was conceived 
as transported bodily by the favour of some divinity to " the isles 
of the blest," or to " the Elysian fields," a distant region of the 
earth which might yet be discovered by the daring voyager. 
This notion, probably a poetic invention, was given a permanent 
place in popular belief by its embodiment in the Homeric poems ; 

^ In this brief account of the Homeric and post-Homeric beliefs I follow 
Erwin Rhode's " Psyche," second edition, Leipzig, 1906. 



10 BODY AND MIND 

it was a natural supplement to the peculiar form that Greek 
Animism had assumed. 

The Homeric beliefs continued to be generally held up 
to the sixth century B.C. ; but a new class of immortals arose, 
men who, like the dwellers in the Happy Isles, had not known 
death, but who, by the power of some god, were engulfed in 
some deep chasm or cave, swallowed by earthquake, or struck 
but not killed by the bolt of Zeus ; and these heroes became 
in many cases the centres of local cults. It was probably under 
the influence of this belief and of these cults that the pre-Homeric 
belief in the survival of the personality after death was revivedi 
Hesiod's doctrine of the Golden Age seems to have played a 
considerable part in restoring this belief For he taught that> 
though the men of the Golden Age had died, their souls were 
raised by the will of Zeus to a life even fuller and richer than 
that they had enjoyed in the body ; and these souls, partaking of 
the immortal nature of the gods, and known like them as Daemons, 
were regarded by him as wandering invisible among men, seeing 
their good and their evil deeds. 

There can be little doubt that these influences played a con- 
siderable part in bringing into prominence in the religious 
life of post- Homeric Greece a new cult of the dead. Not all men 
were held to survive the death of the body, but only great leaders, 
men who in life had bulked large in the eyes of their fellows. 
At this time earth-burial had replaced the funeral pyre of the 
Homeric age, and the soul of the dead hero was believed to 
hover in the neighbourhood of the tomb where his bones were laid. 
Since these surviving souls were held to be capable of affecting 
the welfare of men, especially of their own descendants, they 
became the objects of local and family cults and of propitiatory 
rites. Wine, honey, oil, and burnt sheep were offered to the dead 
hero ; and the ^vhole cult implied the belief that the dead man 
lived on among his people but little changed by death. This 
survival did not imply immortalit)- of the soul ; rather the con- 
tinuance of the soul depended upon the maintenance of the cult 
by the friends, especially the family, of the dead hero. 

The hero attained this life after death by the favour of some 
god, generally announced by the Delphic oracle ; but the process 
became easier and more frequent, and the heroes multiplied rapidly, 
until it was customar}' to regard as surviving in this way all that 
fell in glorious battle. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD ii 

A still wider gate to the life after death was opened by the 
Eleusinian Mysteries. These were derived from the cult of 
Demeter and Persephone of Eleusis, the local divinities of the 
underworld. The cult was adopted by Athens, and became ever 
more widely open ; until even slaves were admitted to initiation: 
Those initiated to participation in this cult were held to be 
assured of a future life less shadowy and unreal than the life of 
the dim underworld of shades, which still was all that the 
uninitiated could look forward to. Thus the hope of a future life 
became possible to all men ; but still there was no general 
acceptance of a belief in the immortality of the soul. 

This first appeared in Greece with the Dionysiac cult, whose 
central feature was a mystic union of the worshipper with the god. 
In the original form of the cult as practised in Thrace, the wor- 
shippers gave themselves up to a wild dance. In the excitement 
of the dance they attained an ecstatic exaltation which they 
believed to imply their possession by the bull-god ; the soul of the 
ecstatic was supposed to depart from his body and to wander in 
distant scenes, holding communion with gods and daemons. 

From Thrace this cult spread throughout all Greece, fusing 
with the cult of Apollo. Under its influence the populace became 
familiar with the notion that the soul, with all the mental faculties, 
is separable from the bod}- ; and under the same influence there 
sprang up the belief that the soul is formed for a higher destiny 
than its life in the body, that it is clogged and held down by 
its association with the body, and that it must be freed from this 
degrading influence by purificatory and ascetic rites. 

In the Orphic cult these ideas were further developed, until 
the soul was regarded as having its true life among the gods, its 
life in the body being a temporary banishment from this true or 
higher life. The soul at death goes to judgment in the under- 
world. Thence it returns to be reincarnated again and again, 
until it is wholly purified ; when it is set free to live for ever with 
the gods. In fact, under the influence of the Dionysiac and 
Orphic cults, the soul came to be regarded as a god imprisoned in 
the body.^ But immortality had always been the most funda- 
mental attribute of the gods, and thus the human soul, by 
assimilation to the gods, became immortal. 

While Animism was developing towards the theory of human 
^ Rhode, op. cil., II. S. 133. 



12 BODY AND MIND 

immortality of the Orphic theologians, the philosophers known as 
the Ionian physicists initiated, in the sixth century B.C., that pro- 
longed effort to learn by pure unprejudiced reasoning the ultimate 
nature of things which we call European philosophy. It was 
their principal aim to exhibit the whole world as the manifestation 
of some fundamental and primary mode of being. And this aim 
led them to reject from the outset both the Animism of popular 
opinion and that of the theologians. For them the soul of man 
was but one mode of manifestation of the power which moves and 
works in all things, without which the world would be dead and 
motionless and unchanging. The psyche of these philosophers 
had nothing in common with the psyche of the Homeric traditions. 
The word was used by them to denote the powers of thinking, 
feeling, willing (and the untranslatable QviJ^ug), which, according to 
the Homeric tradition, were bodily functions resident about the 
diaphragm. Nor was their psyche an individual immortal being 
like that of the Animism of the Orphic priesthood. The question 
as to personal immortality seemed meaningless to these philo- 
sophers ; nevertheless, since the soul is the working in man of 
the power that moves all things, the universal life itself, it is, in 
a sense, imperishable and immortal. So conceived, " the soul 
acquired a new dignity; in another sense than that of the mystics 
and the theologians, it could be claimed as divine ; in the sense, 
namely, that it is a partial manifestation of the one power which 
builds and guides the universe. Not a single daemon is it, but 
the divine power itself." ^ 

The principal Ionian physicists adopted different views of the 
nature of that which they sought as the foundation and origin of 
all things. Thales (B.C. 636), the first of them, held that the 
fundamental element is water ; Anaximenes, that it is the 
universal air. " Diogenes adopted the tenet of Anaximenes 
respecting Air as the origin of things ; but he gave a wider and 
deeper significanee to the tenet by "pointing out the analogy of 
air with the soul (or life). . . . The air is a soul ; therefore it is 
living and intelligent. But this Force of Intelligence is a higher 
thing than the air through which it manifests itself; it must con- 
sequently be prior in point of time ; it must be the apy^^ 
philosophers have sought. The Universe is a living being, 
spontaneously evolving itself, deriving its transformations from its 
own vitality." ^ Thus air was for Diogenes but the symbol of mind. 
^ Rhode, op. cit., II. S. 143. " Lewes' " History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 11. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 13 

HeracHtus (503 B.C.), who belongs to this group of thinkers, 
elaborated this type of speculation on the basis of the assump- 
tion that fire is the principle of life and action which works in 
the perpetual flux of things. " Whatever in the manifold of 
phenomena partakes of the nature of the divine fire is for 
Heraclitus soul, and soul is fire. Fire and soul are interchange- 
able notions, and so the soul of man also is fire, a part of the 
universal vital fire which envelops it, and through the inbreathing 
of which the soul maintains itself alive, a part of the universal 
reason, by participation in which the soul itself is reasonable. In 
man lives the god. Not that, as in the doctrine of the theo- 
logians, he descends as a closed individuality into the form of a 
single human being ; but, as a unity, he envelops mankind, per- 
meating men as with tongues of fire. A part of the all-wisdom 
lives in the soul of man ; . . . the soul is such a part of the 
universal fire which, absorbed into the flux of existing forms, is 
bound up and interwoven with the bodily functions."^ The fire 
which is the soul perpetually converts itself into the water and 
earth of which the body is composed, and thus builds up the body ; 
while it renews itself by drafts from the universal fire. The 
soul, being thus constantly in process of conversion into the lower 
elements and constantly renewed, is no enduring self-identical 
entity. " So long as the soul renews itself from the enveloping 
world-fire, the individual lives. Separation from the source of all 
life, the universal fire, would be death. Now and then, in sleep 
and dreams, the individual soul loses its life-giving connexion 
with the universal fire and is for a time shut up in its own world, 
and this is a partial death. . . . There comes a moment at which 
the soul of man can no longer make good what it loses in the 
process of metabolism, and then comes death." Thus the 
individual dies, but the universal fire is eternal. " The question as to 
individual immortality, or even the continuance of the individual 
soul, has scarcely any meaning for Heraclitus. . . . The indi- 
vidual as a separate being has no value and significance ; the 
perpetuation of this separate existence (if it were possible) would 
seem to him an absurdity. For him only the fire as a whole is 
eternal ; not its separate manifestations in individuals, but only 
the universal energy which transmutes itself into all things and 
reabsorbs all things into itself." ^ 

^ Rhode, op. cit., II. S. 146. 
^Op. cit., II., S. 154. 



14 BODY AND MIND 

For the Ionian philosophers of nature, the soul was, then, a 
part of nature, and psychology a part of natural science. There 
was for them no distinction between the physical and the psychical ; 
rather, all things, including life and mind, were manifestations of 
one universal energy.^ 

Though philosophy had thus begun its course by the rejection 
of Animism, it was not long before the popular doctrine found a 
powerful defender among the philosophers. Pythagoras founded 
his school and acquired a great influence, hardly a generation after 
Thales appeared as the first of the philosophers. The Ionian 
philosophy, contemplating the whole of nature, had wellnigh over- 
looked man, regarding him as but an insignificant fragment of the 
whole. Pythagoras restored man and the problems of human 
nature to their position of prime and central importance, giving 
the soul of man a central position in his doctrine. 

The human soul was conceived as in the Animism then current 
in the dominant religious sect, namely, as the double of the visible 
body and as a da:?mon, z'.e. a godlike and immortal being fallen 
from the divine heights in which is its true home, and shut up in 
the body for punishment. The soul was distinguished from the 
body as something opposed to nature, rather than a part of it. 
Even during its sojourn in the body it has no organic relation to 
it, but maintains uncontaminated its peculiar nature. It does not 
constitute the personality of the man, for any soul may inhabit 
any body ; and after death it tarries in Hades, whence it returns 
again and again to earth, seeking each time a new body for its 
abode. So it wanders during long ages, inhabiting in turn many 
human and animal bodies ; its fate at each incarnation being deter- 
mined by its actions during its preceding periods of embodied life. 
But it is immortal, and in its .essence an unchanging individual, 
being. Its ultimate destiny is to be freed from the bonds of the 
natural life of the body, and to return to dwell for ever in the 
supernatural realm of pure souls whence it came. The practical 
aspect and ultimate aim of the Pythagorean philosophy was to 
learn how to hasten this return of the soul to its divine home by 
means of ascetic and purificatory rites. 

^ The conception of energy current at the present day was of course unknown 
to the ancients ; but if, in the teachings of HeracHtus, we substitute energy for 
fire, we shall realize that he was striving after the modern conception, and that 
he foreshadowed the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy and the 
view, upheld at the present time by some distinguished physicists, according 
to which both mind and matter are but manifestations of the universal energy. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 15 

Thus, at the very dawn of philosophy, we find the leading 
thinkers arrayed in the opposed camps of naturalistic Monism 
and animistic Pluralism. 

Another very influential philosopher, Empedocles (B.C. 444), 
gave to the soul a position very similar to that which it occu- 
pied in the Pythagorean doctrine. His teaching differed from 
the latter in that he attempted the impossible task of combining 
a wide-ranging Animism, similar to the Pythagorean, with a 
thoroughgoing Hylozoism like that of the Ionian school. The 
soul was for him " of a divine order, too noble for this visible 
world, only on release from which it will attain its full and true 
life. Banished to the body, it leads there its separate existence ; 
not everyday perception and feeling is its part, nor even reasoning, 
which is the function of the heart's blood ; but in the ' higher ' 
modes of thought and in ecstatic ' exaltation ' only is it active ; to 
it belongs the philosophical insight which, penetrating beyond the 
apprehension of the narrow range of sensory experience, knows 
the totality of the world's being according to its true nature." ^ 

About the same time that Empedocles thus formulated anew 
the animistic philosophy, Anaxagoras and Democritus took up 
again the way of thought of the Ionian school, and the latter 
especially carried it to a more definite issue than had been 
reached by any of his predecessors. 

Anaxagoras occupies a middle position between the animists 
and the naturalists. For him the universal power that moves 
and orders all things is Reason {'JO\jg). Wherever in the world life 
and movement appear, there this universal power is active. Its 
activity within an animated being constitutes the soul of that 
being. At death, therefore, the individual soul ceases to exist, 
but the supreme power remains. Yet so uncertain still was the 
distinction between matter and spirit that, according to Lewes, 
the supreme energy " was only the abstract form of the vital 
principle animating animals and plants," and " was simply one 
among the numerous agents, material like the rest, and only 
differing from them in being pure " ; and Grote says of it that 
" it is one substance or form of matter among the rest, but thinner 
than all of them, thinner even than fire or air." 

Democritus (B.C. 460) gave the speculations of the Ionian 
school a more modern and definitely materialistic form by 
reducing all things to material atoms and their movements. 
1 Rhode, op. cit., II. S. 1S5. 



l6 BODY AND MIND 

The atom was an indivisible unit constantly in motion, and by- 
impact with others constantly imparting and receiving motion. 
The soul, that which animates living beings, consists also of 
atoms, which are peculiar only in being finer, smoother, more 
rounded, and therefore more mobile, than any others ; these finest 
atoms permeate the whole body and produce the phenomena of 
life. <• These soul atoms are drawn in with the breath, and, when 
they are no longer breathed in, death ensues, Democritus is 
assigned by Rhode the distinction of being the first Greek thinker 
explicitly to deny that the individual may in any sense survive 
the death of the body. 

Democritus' conception of the soul was thus very different 
from the primitive ghost-soul ; nevertheless this latter conception 
seems to have been familiar to him and to have been used by 
him in a novel manner ; he first proposed a theory of percep- 
tion, teaching that, when we see solid objects, it is because these 
objects throw off shadow-like images of themselves (s'/BuXa) which 
enter the eye and pass through it into the soul. As Professor 
Tylor ^ has pointed out, there is good reason to believe that 
these c'/bcuXa were the ghost-souls of popular belief adapted to 
serve a new purpose ; in this changed capacity the ghost-soul 
survived for long ages in the literary tradition. 

Protagoras, the pupil of Democritus, developed into a 
thoroughgoing sensationalism his master's doctrine that thought 
and sensation are identical, and thus provided the mental 
atomism which has always been the necessary supplement of 
metaphysical materialism. 

The pre-Socratic philosophy thus culminated in a thorough- 
going Materialism. The doctrine of the Ionian philosophers 
was not properly Materialism, for the distinction between matter 
and spirit had not yet been clearly drawn. It is impossible to 
say that their universal principles (^.^. the air of Diogenes, the fire 
of Heraclitus) were more nearly allied to the spiritual or to the 
physical, as conceived by later thought. Nor did the conception 
of the soul entertained by the animistic philosophers imply any 
clear distinction between the material or physical and the spiritual 
or mental, such as has been commonly maintained in later ages. 
For them it seems to have retained something of the nature of 
the daemon of the theologians from which it derived, and this in 
turn was but the ghost-soul of primitive Animism, glorified by 
1 " Primitive Culture," vol. i. p. 497. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 17 

assimilation to the nature of the gods, but still, like thetriy 
incompletely dematerialized. 

That the distinction was not clearly drawn by the Pythago- 
reans appears from the fact that they saw in the motes, which dance 
in the sunbeam with apparently spontaneous movement, discarnate 
souls seeking new bodies, in which to take up again their earth- 
life. And that Empedocles also failed to achieve this distinction 
is shown by his assigning to the body all the mental functions, 
save only those which he regarded as of the most exalted kind 
and alone worthy of the soul, namely, processes of ecstatic vision 
and philosophic intuition. 

Democritus, by giving greater definition to the notion ot 
matter and by describing the universe as composed wholly of 
atoms of matter in motion, sharpened the issue between 
Materialism and Animism, and prepared the way for the clearer 
distinction between matter and spirit which Plato established 
in the literary tradition of Europe, and to the abolition of 
which the efforts of modern philosophers have been so largely 
directed. 

Plato's teaching in regard to the soul and its relation to the 
body is scattered through a number of the dialogues, which were 
written at considerable intervals of time ; and during the long 
course of his philosophic activity his views seem to have under- 
gone considerable changes. Partly for this reason, and partly 
.because much of what he wrote of the soul took the form of 
symbolism in the myths, whose aim was moral and aesthetic 
rather than strictly scientific, it is impossible to summarize his 
doctrine in any clear-cut and entirely consistent statement. 

The view of the soul expressed in the earlier dialogues is 
part of an ontological scheme whose nature was largely 
determined by ethical considerations. Two realms of being 
are distinguished ; on the one hand the realm of intelligible and 
true Being, consisting of the timeless unchanging Ideas ; on the 
other hand the realm of Becoming, to which belong all objects of 
sense-perception (including, of course, the human body). 

Souls are existences of a third class, whose function it is to 
mediate between these two realms. Their position in this 
ontological scheme is peculiar. They belong in a sense to 
both realms, for they are active in both. Souls have afiinity to 
or kinship with the Ideas, and it is in virtue only of their kinship 



18 BODY AND MIND 

that they are able to contemplate and know the Ideas. Like the 
Ideas, they are wholly immaterial and wholly real ; yet they are 
necessarily different from them, if only because they know them, 
and because they are subject to change in their intercourse 
with the realm of becoming. But the soul differs still more 
widely from the body, with whose nature it has nothing in 
common. The soul's activities are of two principal kinds, 
knowing and moving or causing movement. The cognitive 
activity is exercised in two very different ways : on the one 
hand, by immediate contemplation of the Ideas the soul attains 
true knowledge ; on the other hand, by the aid of the bodily 
faculties, it becomes aware of the objects of the sensible world ; 
and these stir up within it imperfect reminiscences of the Ideas 
of which they are the symbols or shadows. These two modes 
of cognitive activity, distinguished as Reason (voug) and Sense 
{ai'(rdyi<rig), and sometimes referred to by Plato as functions of 
different parts of the soul, were regarded as yielding two kinds 
of knowledge of very different value, true knowledge and mere 
opinion respectively. 

In regard to the soul's function as a principle of movement, 
it is to be noted that, whereas earlier philosophers had generally 
regarded the soul (or soul-atoms) as moving spontaneously in 
space and as capable of imparting its motion to other things, 
Plato regarded the soul, not as itself in movement, but as that 
which initiates or generates all movement. This at least seems 
to be his meaning, if we consider his remarks on this head in the 
light of the rest of his teaching ; though Aristotle attributes 
to him the older view, and undertakes an elaborate refutation 
of it. 

This position of the soul intermediate between the two 
realms of existence, that of the Ideas and that of sensible 
things, is so unsatisfactory that some interpreters ^ have main- 
tained that in this earlier period Plato, starting with the two 
realms of existence, had failed to grasp, or at anyrate to 
offer, any satisfactory solution of the problem of the soul's 
position in his ontological scheme ; and they hold that his 
later doctrine of the soul involved a fundamental change of 
position. The soul of man, instead of appearing as an appendage 
to the ontological scheme, added by an afterthought, acquires a 

1 Thus e.g. Mr E. J. Roberts, in his article, " Plato's View of the Soul," Mtnd 
N.S., vol. xiv. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 19 

position of primary importance ; it, or the world-soul from which 
it was said to derive its being, becomes the supreme reality on 
which the Ideas are dependent. 

So far did this change go that some recent interpreters have 
forcibly argued that the Ideas were for Plato, not, as most others, 
following Aristotle, have maintained, separate things or realities 
subsisting independently of mind, but the logical concepts of the 
mind, by aid of which it brings order and intelligibility into the 
chaos of sense-experience, and that this was Plato's meaning 
throughout the earlier as well as the later Dialogues.^ 

Whatever may be the truth as to Plato's view of the relation 
of the soul to the Ideas, his teaching as to the purely immaterial 
and immortal nature of the soul is clear enough. The soul 
of man, though it is in some sense derived from the world- 
soul, is not merely a ray of the universal energy, life, or mind, 
as it appears in the systems of the Ionian philosophers. It is a 
self-contained individual being, the ground of personality ; as 
such it exists in the realm of pure Being before incarnation ; 
from that realm it brings the knowledge of the Ideas manifested in 
reminiscence ; and as such it endures through all the vicissitudes of 
its successive re-incarnations. Apart from its temporary association 
with this or that bodily organism, its activity is purely the exercise 
of reason and the willing of that which the reason comprehends. 
But, when drawn from its pure spiritual existence into the realm 
of matter and associated with a bodily organism, the soul 
exercises, in conjunction with the body, certain lower functions, 
namely, the higher emotions and the bodily appetites. These 
three modes of its activity are attributed to different parts of the 
soul ; and in one dialogue, the Tiniaeus, they are even assigned 
to three distinct souls — the rational soul seated in the head, the 
spiritual soul in the chest, and the appetitive soul in the abdomen. 
But it seems clear that this statement was not meant to be 
taken literally. Although Plato sometimes speaks of the two 
lower functions as belonging to a mortal soul, and leaves it an 
open question how far these lower functions belong to the soul 
when it is freed from the body ; the " three parts of the soul " 
should, perhaps, be regarded, not as the activities of distinct souls 
or even distinct faculties, but rather as three levels of mental 
function ; the highest only being exercised apart from the body, 

^ Especially Prof. J. A. Stewart in his " Plato's Doctrine of Ideas," 1909, 
and Prof. Natorp, ' Plato's Ideeuiehre " (1903). 



20 BODY AND MIND 

Reason controls the lower functions, but not always with com- 
plete success ; and when the lower faculties, in their contam- 
inating intimacy with the body, get out of control, the soul 
suffers a debasement, which must be expiated by future incar- 
nation in lower bodily forms, even animal forms. From this 
recurring cycle of incarnations the soul can free itself only by 
overcoming completely the evil incitations that come to it from 
the body ; and only when this is accomplished, does it return to 
its true home, the realm of eternal untroubled Being. 

There can be little doubt that Plato's doctrine of the soul and 
of its transmigrations was largely drawn from the teachings of 
the Orphic theologians. His teaching and prestige raised the 
religious belief in the immortality of the soul (which was widely but 
not generally entertained at the time he began his work) to the 
level of a philosophic theory and secured it a wider acceptance. 
In fact, Plato's doctrine may be regarded as the culminating re- 
finement of the stream of Greek Animism, of which the Dionysiac 
and Orphic cults were the popular aspect. Plato purified the 
conception of the soul of the last remnants of the dualistic 
materialism of primitive Animism, which still lingered in the 
Orphic doctrine, and, insisting upon the fundamental difference of 
nature between soul and body, clearly formulated for the first 
time the theory of psycho-physical dualism with reciprocal action 
between soul and body. 

In spite of the great name of Plato, his psycho-physical 
dualism did not find many supporters among the thinkers of the 
immediately succeeding period. It seemed for a time almost 
completely submerged ; the dominant philosophical trend re- 
turned to the line of physical speculation initiated by the Ionian 
School : the immortality of the soul was but little discussed, and 
Animism was at a low ebb in the philosophic world. In short, 
the period was, like the present time, one in which " souls were 
out of fashion." At the opening of this period stands the great 
figure of Aristotle. 

Aristotle approached psychology from the point of view of 
biology, and by him soul (-^vyji) was ascribed to all material 
things that manifest powers of spontaneous movement and 
growth, that is to say, to all living organisms ; in fact, he dis- 
tinguished them from the inorganic world (ra. a4'^%«) by the 
expression the animate or the besouled (ra lu^-^u^a). The word 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 21 

-^^vx^, as used by him, would therefore be more correctly trans- 
lated by our English term life, or vital principle, rather than soul. 
The psyche is, in short, the vital principle, the possession of which 
distinguishes the living organism from inorganic things, and by 
that word all the peculiarities of living things, including the 
mental processes, are denoted ; or perhaps Aristotle's conception 
would be more correctly expressed in modern language by saying 
that the soul is the sum of the vital functions. Among the vital 
activities, or psychic powers, of organisms, Aristotle distinguishes 
five principal kinds, namely: (i) the vegetative processes of 
nutrition, growth, and reproduction ; (2) appetite, impulse, or 
desire, or, as we should now say, conation ; (3) sensation ; (4) 
power of spontaneous movement in space; (5) rational thought. 
Of these the plants enjoy only the first. The animals enjoy also 
the second, third, and fourth, which naturally go together and 
presuppose the first. Man alone enjoys all these powers ; reason 
is his alone. 

These activities are not the functions of distinct souls, or of 
distinct parts of the soul ; for the soul is unitary. Every living 
thing is in a sense a combination of soul and body ; yet soul 
and body are not distinct things in the sense that they can or do 
exist apart from each other. They can only be separated in 
thought. (This at least seems to be Aristotle's most explicit 
teaching, but his utterances on this point are not consistent.) 
The soul is not to be regarded as material, yet it is inseparable 
from matter. The body is the " material cause " of the organism ; 
the soul is its "efficient cause," for it produces its movements; 
it is .also its " formal cause," for it determines the form of the 
individual organism ; and it is its " final cause," for it is the end 
for the sake of which the body exists. 

The dictum which has been generally held to express 
most concisely Aristotle's notion of the psycho-physical rela- 
tion is that the soul is the form of the body. This expression 
conveys no definite meaning to the modern mind, unless it 
is familiar with Aristotelian thought. The reader may find 
himself helped to grasp Aristotle's notion by a collection of 
the most significant passages. Among these are the following : — 
" The soul is the principle by which, in an ultimate sense, we live 
and feel and think ; it is a sort of idea and form, not matter and 
substrate." ^ " Soul is the primary actuality of a natural body en- 
^ " De Anima," Bk. II. chap. ii. 



22 BODY AND MIND 

dowed with the capacity of life. ... It is, therefore, unnecessary to 
ask whether body and soul are one, as one would not ask whether 
the wax and the figure impressed on it are one, or, in general, 
whether the matter of a particular thing and the thing composed 
of it are one." ^ After likening the relation between soul and 
body to that between vision and the eye, he adds : " It is, there- 
fore, clear that the soul cannot be separated from the body." Yet 
in the following paragraph he goes on : " Yet it is uncertain 
whether the soul may not be the actuality of the body, as the 
sailor is of the ship." - This uncertainty as regards the separability 
of the soul applies only to its reasoning part ; and it arises 
from the fact that, whereas the other psychical functions are the 
actualities or realizations of certain bodily organs, as vision is the 
realization or notional essence of the eye, reason is not the real- 
ization of any bodily organ. And so his opinion fluctuates : " In 
regard to reason and the speculative faculty there is no certain 
evidence, but it seems to be a generically distinct kind of soul, 
and it alone is capable of separation from the body, as that which 
is eternal from that which is perishable. But the other parts 
of the soul are, in view of the foregoing considerations, evidently 
inseparable." ^ Again, he wrote : " A difficulty presents itself 
in regard to the affections of the soul, namely, whether all 
its affections are common to the soul and to the body which 
contains it, or whether there is something that belongs to the 
soul alone. It is necessary, though hard, to solve this difficulty. 
In most cases the soul apparently acts, or is acted on, only in 
conjunction with the body ; for example, in the feelings of anger, 
courage, desire and, in general, in sense-perception. Thought, if 
anything, would seem to be. peculiar to the soul. Yet, if thought 
is a sort of representation in terms of a sense-image, or is impos- 
sible without it (which he affirms in another place*), then even 
thought could not exist independently of the body. If, then, 
there were any function or affections of the soul that were peculiar 
to it, it would be possible for the soul to exist separate and 
apart from the body. If, however, there is nothing which belongs 
to it exclusively, it cannot exist apart." ^ 

1 " De Anima," Bk. II. chap. i. ^ Ibid. 

» Op. cit., Bk. II. chap. ii. 

* " The soul, therefore, never thinks without the use of images" (" De 
Anima," Bk. III. chap. vii.). 

* " De Anima," Bk. I. chap. i. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 23 

In this passage it is clearly laid down that the question of 
the separability of the soul, and therefore of the possibility of its 
continued existence after the death of the body, is one to be 
decided by empirical research into the extent and nature of the 
participation of bodily processes in mental life. 

Aristotle's uncertainty as to the separability of any part or 
function of the soul applies only to that which he distinguishes as 
the creative reason (vodg 'zotrinxog) from the passive reason. To the 
latter belong the powers of imagination or sensory representation. 
Reason is passive in so far as it receives its content through 
sense-perception ; but thought is more than the coexistence and 
succession of sensations, perceptions, and images of imagination 
and memory. These are but the matter of thought ; that which 
gives them, form is the active or creative reason. This highest 
function of the soul it is which converts the perceptually 
acquired contact of the mind to a system of logically ordered 
thought, and thus in a sense creates reality by giving it a rational 
form. This is the function which seems to Aristotle to have no 
bodily organ, to be the realization of no part of the body ; and 
it is this to which he refers when he says that " In its separated 
state alone reason is its true self, immortal and eternal " ; ^ that 
potential knowledge pre-exists in the individual ; that reason is 
of such a nature that on the one hand it becomes all things, and 
on the other hand creates all things ; and that " it is separate, 
not passive, unmixed and in its essential nature an energizing 
force." - 

But it seems clear that the immortality tentatively as- 
cribed by Aristotle to the creative reason involves no personal 
immortality, no survival of the individual soul ; but rather holds 
good only of the universal reason. And, since Aristotle explicitly 
affirms that " the passive reason is perishable and without it 
there can be no thought," - it follows that the immortal reason is 
potential only, that it actually operates only in conjunction with 
the body, which through the senses supplies it with the matter of 
thought. 

Aristotle's few, hesitating, and ambiguous remarks on the 
separability and immortality of the creative reason have given 
rise to an immense amount of controversy among the reverent 
interpreters and commentators. By some modern interpreters 
this part of his doctrine is regarded as an element foreign to and 
^ " De Anima," Bk. III. chap. v. ^ Ibid. 



24 BODY AND MIND 

incompatible with the main body of it. These look upon it as 
derived through Plato from the Orphic theologians, and as 
evidence merely that Aristotle did not completely succeed in 
shaking off the influence of his great teacher. 

But this explanation of Aristotle's attitude on this question 
is hardly required. Aristotle showed himself generally inclined 
to take up a very critical attitude towards Plato's teaching, and 
ready to accentuate the differences between his own views and 
those of his great master. 

His attitude on this question was thoroughly scientific, and 
just such as was demanded by an impartial consideration of the 
facts.' His interpreters have generally attempted to show either 
that he taught the immortality of the soul or of the active reason, 
or that he denied it. We shall be wiser if we recognize the plain 
implication of his words, namely, that he held it impossible to 
return a decisive answer to this great question without further 
empirical knowledge of the bodily processes involved in mental 
activities ; and we shall see in later chapters that, in spite of 
many centuries of heated controversy, the question still remains 
just where Aristotle left it, with this difference only — that we are 
beginning to acquire that understanding of the nature and extent 
of the bodily processes involved in mental activity, the lack of 
which necessitated suspension of judgment in the truly scientific 
mind of Aristotle. 

Whatever degree of truth there may be in the view that 
Aristotle's indecision in the face of this question was due to 
Plato's influence, it is clear that his doctrine of the creative reason 
has none of the practical and ethical significance of Plato's doctrine 
of immortality. 

As regards the relation of the soul to the parts of the body, 
Aristotle called attention to a number of facts which seemed to 
him to indicate that such psychical powers as the plants and lower 
animals enjoy are exercised equally in or by all parts of the 
body. But he held that in the higher animals the psychical 
functions are concentrated in, or more especially exercised by, 
certain parts of the body; and, rejecting the brain as the principal 
seat of the soul, and assigning to it merely the function of cooling 
the blood, he taught that the heart is the principal centre of 
vitality or soul life. The heart is the sensoriuni cornviwie, or seat 
of the common sense, by which the common sensibiles (i.e. those 
properties of things later distinguished by Locke as the primary 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 25 

qualities), are perceived. " The dominating organ of sensation in 
all sanguineous animals is found in the heart, for the ' common 
sense' that serves all the special senses must be situated there. 
There are two senses, taste and touch, whose channels lead 
manifestly to the heart, and what is true of these must be true of 
the other senses. Movement in the other sense-organs may be 
transmitted to the heart, but with the upper parts of the body 
these two senses "do not communicate in any way. Apart from 
these considerations, if the principle of life of all animals is seated 
in the heart, the sensory principle must evidently be there also." ^ 

These and other passages make it clear that Aristotle knew 
nothing of the functions of the nerves and nervous system. 

It is of interest to note that Aristotle foreshadowed our modern 
notions of the dependence of all life on combustion or oxydation, 
asserting the dependence of the psychical functions (i.e. of life) on 
fire or heat. " Since every living thing has a soul, and the soul, 
as we have said, cannot subsist without natural heat, we find that 
in plants adequate provision has been made for the preservation 
of natural heat through nutriment and the surrounding air."- " It 
was said above that life and the possession of soul are accompanied 
by a certain degree of heat. For even the process of concoction, 
by which food is made ready for animal life, is not accomplished 
without soul and heat ; and all this is effected by fire. . . . And 
other functions of the soul cannot be performed independently of 
the nutritive principle, and this in turn cannot subsist without 
natural heat." ^ " Birth is the original suffusion of the nutritive 
soul with heat, and life is the maintenance of this heat. Youth 
is the period of the growth of the organ of cooling, old age that 
of the wasting of this organ, and the prime of life is the middle 
period between the two. Death and violent destruction mean 
respectively the exhaustion and extinction of the vital heat." * It 
is curious that while thus correctly, though vaguely, conceiving the 
fundamental importance of combustion for the maintenance of life, 
Aristotle attributed old age and death, not to failure of the pro- 
cesses of combustion, but rather to exhaustion, due to inadequacy 
of the cooling arrangements by v/hich (according to his view) the 
processes of combustion are normally kept in check. 

The foregoing brief statement of Aristotle's teaching in regard 
to the soul suffices to show that it has more affinity with the 

^ " De Juvent.," chap. iii. " " De Juvent.," chap. vi. 

* " De Respirat.," chap. vii. ^ " De Respirat.," chap, xviii. 



26 BODY AND MIND 

Hylozoism of the Ionian philosophers and the Materialism of 
Democritus and his successors than with the materialistic Animism 
of popular thought or the spiritualistic Animism of Plato. 

The notion of a radical difference of nature between soul and 
body, between spirit and matter, which Plato established in the 
culture-tradition of Europe, has never passed wholly away ; but 
the great age of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle was followed by 
one of which the principal features were Scepticism and a material- 
istic reaction against the spiritualistic dualism of Plato. Epicurus, 
adopting the Atomism of Democritus, taught that " the soul is a 
fine substance distributed through the whole mass of the body, and 
most resembles the air with an infusion of warmth " ^; that it is an 
organ of the body by means of which the body shares in sensation, 
and that it is dissolved with the body. At death the soul-atoms 
are dispersed in the air. He distinguished two parts, or modes of 
manifestation, of the soul, namely, the reasonless part or vital force 
which permeates all parts of the body, and the reasonable part 
which resides in the breast and is the organ of understanding and 
volition : a distinction which reappears in the teaching of Lucretius. 
In his ethical and psychological hedonism, Epicurus provided a 
further supplement to the materialism of Democritus, a supple- 
ment which in later ages also has usualh' gone hand in hand 
with mental atomism or sensationalism and with metaphysical 
materialism. 

The teachings of the early Stoics, although so opposed to 
Epicurus in respect to ethical doctrines, resembled his in follow- 
ing the materialism of Democritus ; but, whereas the matter of 
Democritus had only the attributes of extension, hardness, mass, 
and capacity of movement, the matter of the Stoics was endowed 
with many forces. By them the life-principle was generally 
designated the pneiinia, and this was regarded as a material 
principle composed of air and fire, which pervades the whole 
body, presides over its growth and movements, and is also the 
principle of intellectual life. Some of the Stoics held that 
death is the end of life ; others suspended judgment on this 
problem ; others again, adopting a materialistic Pantheism 
taught, not without some inconsistency, that the soul of the wise 
man maintains itself after death according to the degree of his 
ethical development ; but that it eventually loses its individu- 
^ A. Lange, "Hist, of Materialism," vol. i. p. io6. 



ANIMISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 27 

ality and, being consumed in fire, is reabsorbed in the divine 
Being. " The human soul is a part of the Deity, or an emanation 
from the same ; the soul and its source act and react upon each 
other. The soul is the warm breath within us. Although it 
outlives the body, it is yet perishable, and can only endure, at 
the longest, till the termination of the world period in which it 
exists." ^ 

Scepticism and Stoicism remained the dominant modes of 
thought from the time of Aristotle till the opening of the Christian 
era ; when the contact of the two lines of literary tradition from 
which that of modern Europe descends, namely, the Hebrew and 
the Greek, gave birth to two philosophies, the Neoplatonic and 
the Christian, each of which developed its distinctive theory of 
the soul. These developments will be traced in the following 
chapter. 

^ Ueberweg's " History of Philosophy." 



CHAPTER II 
ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

THE greatest merit of the Middle Ages," writes Professor 
Hoffding/ " lies in its absorption in the inner world of 
the life of the soul. Classical antiquity had paused at 
the harmonious relation between the inner and the outer, and its 
interest in the inner life was limited to its relation to outer life 
in Nature and the State. To the faith of the Middle Ages the 
eternal fate of the personality was determined by the events of 
the inner life. . . . No wonder that a fine and deep sense of the 
inner life developed. The self-absorption of the mystic was as 
important for the development of the psychological sense as the 
distinctions and argumentations of the schoolmen for that of the 
logical sense. It dawned upon men that the spiritual world is 
just as much a reality as the material world, and that in the 
former is Man's true home. The way was prepared for a more 
thorough investigation of the great problem of spirit and matter 
than was possible to antiquity." 

We have seen that the Stoics gave currency to a new 
designation of the animating principle, namely, pneunia'} With 
the introduction of the 'pneinna began ^ that trichotomy of human 
personality into body, soul, and spirit which has figured promi- 
nently in the speculations of theologians ; it continues to pervade 
the popular thought of Christendom to the present day, though 
the relation between psyche and pneuvia, soul and spirit, has 
fluctuated widely and has never been clearly defined. 

The pneunia, which was conceived by the Stoics as a material 
vital principle, continued to play an important part in the physio- 
logical speculations of physicians and natural philosophers ; in 
the hands of Christian theologians, on the other hand, it became 

^ " History of Modern Philosophy," Eng. trans., vol. i. p. 5. 

" Itf' would perhaps be more correct to say that pneimia stood* for a theory 
of the vital processes, the sum of which was denoted by the word ^vxv'. 

^ But see p. 7 for the view of Dr Charles that a similar trichotomy pervades 
the later eschatology of the Old Testament. 
28 



ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 29 

transformed into a purely spiritual immaterial soul. In this 
way, through the inevitable specialization of learning, the con- 
ception of the psyche or soul, which through all the Greek 
philosophy had covered both the animating principle of all 
living things and the intellectual or mental principle of man, 
became differentiated into two conceptions, which long continued 
to figure in the European culture-tradition more or less inde- 
pendently of one another, namely, on the one hand the vital 
force of the physiologists, and on the other hand the spirit or 
immaterial soul of man. 

The latter conception was not taken over by the Fathers of 
the Church directly from Plato ; it descended to them indirectly 
by way of the Neoplatonists, in whose hands it was developed 
under the influence of Eastern mysticism and Hebrew theology. 

We have seen that among the Greek philosophers the domi- 
nant conception of the soul was that of a material substance, very 
thin and mobile, and having the power of spontaneous movement. 
The early Fathers, who shaped the doctrines of the Christian 
Church up to the fifth century, continued to hold this view of the 
soul. They were not materialists in the modern sense of the word, 
as applied to those who deny the existence of soul or spirit. But 
they were dualistic materialists ; for, while they regarded man as 
made up of soul and body, they held both soul and body to be 
material. It was even held to be heretical to deny the material 
nature of the soul ; for only material substance, it was thought, 
could be susceptible of physical pains and pleasures ; therefore a 
material soul was required by the doctrine of retribution after 
death. A passage from Tertullian, one of the greatest of the 
early Fathers,^ may serve to illustrate this doctrine. He wrote, 
" All that is real is body. The corporeality of God does not 
detract from His sublimity, nor that of the soul from its im- 
mortality. Everything that is, is body after its kind. What is 
not body is nothing. Who shall deny that God is body, though 
He is a spirit ? A spirit is a body of its own kind, in its own 
form. The soul has the human form, the same as its body, only 
it is delicate, clear, and ethereal. Unless it were corporeal, how 
could it be affected by the body?" And St Jerome argued, " If 
the dead be not raised with flesh and bones, how can the damned 
after judgment gnash their teeth in hell?" These passages 
show how the teaching of the Fathers, according to which both 
^ He wrote about the end of the second century of our era. 



30 BODY AND MIND 

God and the soul are corporeal, involved a return very nearly to 
the primitive theory of the ghost-soul, the vapour-like duplicate 
of the body. It was the same undifferentiated materialistic 
dualism. 

The spiritualization of the soul seems to have been achieved 
by way of the refinement of the conception of God. This refining 
process consisted in successively denying Him all the distinctive 
attributes of matter, until the conception of an immaterial spirit 
was reached. And then the conception of the human soul was 
assimilated to this more refined conception of God. Thus man, 
having created God in his own likeness in the course of his first 
speculative efforts, reversed the order of procedure at a later 
stage and shaped his idea of himself on the model of his more 
refined idea of God. 

It was probably through the influence of the Neoplatonists 
that this refinement was effected. Neoplatonism represents the 
culmination of a reaction against the quasi-materialism of the 
Stoics and a revival of the influence of Plato. 

In Alexandria the men and the thoughts of many races and 
peoples came into contact, and Philo the Jew, a forerunner of 
the Neoplatonic school, attempted to combine Hebrew theology 
with Greek philosophy. He identified the pneuuia of the Stoics 
with the breath of the Hebrew God and with the reason of both 
Plato and Aristotle. The Hebrews, like so many other peoples, 
had conceived the soul as air, wind, breath. But this air was 
breathed into man by God ; ^ and therefore, as the conception of 
God was dematerialized, so also the pneuvia emanating from him 
to become the soul of "man became an immaterial substance. 
But in Philo's doctrine the process of dematerialization is not 
completed ; the animal soul of man is generated with and 
destroyed with the body, and the pnezima, which is the rational 
soul breathed into him by God, is the last sublimation of the 
physical principle of the Stoics.^ 

^ See p. 7. 

" St Paul's doctrine of human personality, departing in this respect from the 
teachings of the other parts of the New Testament, in which soul and spirit are 
not distinguished, involved a similar trichotomy, body, soul, and spirit. Accord- 
ing to Prof. Charles, the Apostle adopted the later doctrine of the Old Testament 
which regarded the soul " as the supreme function of the body quickened by 
the spirit. So conceived it naturally perishes on the withdrawal of the latter. 
It has, therefore, no existence in the next life. And such, in fact, appears to be 
the view of the Apostle. The soul, he holds, is the vital principle of the flesh 
(adp^). Hence the epithets 'iieshly' (crapKi/co's) and ' soulish ' (i/'i'x'kos) over 



ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 31 

Plotinus, the most prominent figure among the Neoplatonists, 
insisted that life and thought are not to be explained by means 
of any physical principle, such as the pneuma of the Stoics, no 
matter how thin or refined it may be ; he seems to have been 
the first to describe the soul as an immaterial substance. In his 
doctrine, abstraction and the negation of attributes to God are 
carried so far that God becomes the One. This One sends forth 
Nous, the universal mind, of which in turn the human soul is an 
emanation. " The soul is the image and product of the Nous, 
just as the Nous is of the One. As being only the image of the 
Nous, the soul is necessarily of inferior rank and character, though 
none the less really divine and endowed with generative force. . . . 
The soul is an immaterial substance, not a body, nor the harmony, 
nor the entelechy of the body and inseparable from the latter, 
since not only the Nous, but also memory, and even the faculty 
of perception, and the psychical force which moulds the body, 
are separable from the body. There exists a real plurality of 
souls ; the highest of all is the soul of the world ; but the rest 
are not mere parts of the world-soul. The soul permeates the 
body as fire permeates air. It is more correct to say that the 
body is in the soul than that the soul is in the body ; there is, 
therefore, a portion of the soul in which there is no body, a 
portion to whose functions the co-operation of the body is 
unnecessary. But neither are the sensuous faculties lodged in 
the body, whether in its individual parts or in the body as a whole : 
they are only present with the body, the soul lending to each bodily 
organ the force necessary for the execution of its functions. Thus 
the soul is present not only in the individual parts of the body, 
but in the whole body, and present everywhere in its entirety, not 
divided among the different parts of the body ; it is entirely in 
the whole body, and entirely in every part. . . . The soul 
resembles God by its unity and by its possession of a centre and 

against 'spiritual' (7rj/ei;^aTi/co's) are taken to be synonymous." The pneuma or 
spirit comes directly from God, but, since it alone is the immortal part of man, 
it is not reabsorbed into the Godhead on the death of the body, as in the later 
Hebrew conception, and is the basis of personal immortality. But, as Prof. 
Charles remarks, "the Pauhne doctrine of the spirit is beset with difficulties " 
{op. cit., p. 411) ; that is to say, the Apostle does not carry through clearly and 
consistently his trichotomous doctrine, does not succeed in combining in one 
consistent doctrine of personal immortality the conception of the soul as a 
function of the body that perishes with it and that of the pneuma as an 
emanation from God. 



32 BODY AND MIND 

hence arises the possibility of its communion vvitii the One " ; ^ 
a communion which involves apprehension of a unique kind and 
is achieved only during rare moments of ecstasy. 

In the later part of the fourth century Gregory of Nyssa 
argued for the immateriality of the soul and also for its immor-, 
tality. Against those who, like the early Fathers, maintained that 
the soul is material, he urged that the spiritual nature of God, 
which cannot be denied, proves the possibility of immaterial 
existence. " We may with the same right conclude from the 
phenomena of the human microcosm to the actual existence of 
an immaterial soul, as from the phenomena of the world as a 
whole to the reality of God's existence. The soul is defined by 
Gregory as a created being, having life, the power of thought, 
and, so long as it is provided with the proper organs, the power 
of sensuous perception. As being simple and uncompounded 
the soul survives the dissolution of the composite body, whose 
scattered elements it continues and will continue to accompany, 
as if watching over its property, until the resurrection, when it 
will clothe itself in them anew." " 

The expression " immaterial substance " does not seem to have 
been used by the Fathers until the fifth century, when Augustine 
applied it to define the nature of the soul of man. He is known 
to have been greatly influenced by the Neoplatonists, especially 
by Plotinus, and it is probable that he derived the notion and 
the expression from them. Augustine seems also to have been 
the first to make extension the distinctive attribute of matter, 
and the lack of it the distinctive attribute of soul. Nevertheless, 
he taught that the soul is present at each moment in every part 
of the body ; he wrote, " when there is any pain in the foot, the 
eye looks, the tongue speaks, the hand moves, and this would not 
occur unless what of the soul is in those parts felt also in the foot ; 
nor, if not present in the foot, could it feel what has there happened." 
And yet the soul was not to be regarded as having extension. 
Augustine also laid down the dictum that whatever is not matter 
and yet has real existence is properly termed spirit. He thus 
clearly distinguished two classes of real existents, the material 
and the spiritual, a distinction destined to be so widely accepted 
for long ages. And then, having conceived the soul as an 
immaterial substance, Augustine seems to have felt the difificulty 
of the question so often raised in later ages, namely, How can 
^ Ueberweg's " History of Philosophy." ^ Ueberweg's " History." 



ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 33 

two things so unlike as material body and immaterial soul 
influence one another ? And in order to mitigate this difficulty 
he postulated a third substance intermediate in nature between 
matter and spirit, matter of a very subtle kind which should 
serve as the medium of interaction. 

Augustine of course maintained the survival of the soul after 
death of the body, and claimed for it immortality, subject to the 
will of God, by which alone it could be annihilated. 

No considerable change in the Church's teaching as regards 
the nature of the soul was effected until about the end of the 
twelfth century, when the diffusion of translations of the works of 
Aristotle and the invasion of Southern Europe by the Mohamedan 
commentators set the schoolmen upon the attempt to reconcile 
the teaching of Aristotle with the tenets of the Christian Church. 

The earlier schoolmen made of the three fundamental 
psychical powers distinguished by Aristotle, the vegetative, the 
sensitive, and the intellectual, three distinct and almost com- 
pletely independent souls, aninia vegetativa, aniina sejisitiva, 
aninia rationalis ; the last of these only was regarded by them 
as immortal. But thi-s strange doctrine was destined soon to be 
swept away by the greatest of the schoolmen. Thomas Aquinas 
taught in the later part of the thirteenth century a philosophy and 
a psychology which were the culmination of the scholastic efforts, 
and which have remained with comparatively little change the 
accepted doctrines of the Roman Church. His psychological 
writings and those of his immediate predecessor, Albertus 
Magnus, were largely provoked by the rapid spread of Arabian 
heresies in the schools of Europe, and they were mainly directed 
towards the refutation of Averroism. Averroes, who flourished in 
the later part of the twelfth century, was the most influential of 
the Arab philosophers. His doctrines, which claimed to be 
the inevitable developments of Aristotle's teaching, were widely 
accepted both in Spain and Italy ; but they were regarded by the 
more orthodox schoolmen as involving heretical perversions. 

A central topic of discussion throughout the three hundred 
years of the flourishing of the Arab philosophy was the relation of 
the creative reason of Aristotle to the soul of man. The master 
himself had, as we have seen, expressed himself incapable of 
forming a decided opinion on the question of the relation of the 
creative reason to the bodily organism. Alexander of Aphrodisias, 

3 



34 BODY AND MIND 

a Greek writer of the end of the second century, had given wide 
currency to a theological development of Aristotle's uncertain 
utterances. According to this doctrine, which was propounded 
as a protest against the Materialism of the Stoics and a return to 
Aristotle, the creative reason belongs to God alone. The human soul 
was regarded as possessing only the passive reason, a capacity or 
disposition for rational thought, which remains, however, a mere 
potentiality until realized or brought into actuality by the 
*' assistance " of the Divine Reason.^ The doctrine of " Divine 
Assistance " played some part in the development of Neo- 
platonism, and, partly through that system and in part directly, 
brought into prominence in the Arabian philosophy the question 
of the possibility of the mode of " union " or " conjunction " of 
the human soul with the one creative reason. The latter came to 
be regarded in the Arab schools as a universal superior principle 
that mediates between God and man. After three centuries of 
controversy over this problem, Averroes went back to the doctrine 
of Alexander, and improved upon it by denying to the human 
soul the passive reason or intellect as well as the active reason ; 
for, he argued, this mere potentiality of reason is nothing. Thus 
it might seem that in this doctrine the soul of man was stripped 
of all that in Aristotle's view distinguishes it from that of 
animals ; but memory and the power of sensory representation 
and a qua?i-intelligence, which went by the name z'ls cogitativa, 
in fact all but the capacity to form a pure abstract notion, were 
allowed it. Reason or intelligence was then a metaphysical 
entity, whose relation . to individual huma^n souls was purely 
external and accidental and temporary. The doctrine involved 
the denial to the human soul of immortality and of any existence 
apart from the body ; and this implication was explicitly taught by 
Averroes, though it was not accepted by all who professed them- 
selves his disciples. 

It was to the refutation of this doctrine that Aquinas 
addressed himself in one of his principal treatises,^ insisting 
that we cannot be content to explain the thought of man by 
the aid of a principle which is neither a part of the con- 
stitution of man, nor one in which man participates. He 
returned to the psychological method, and, instead of making an 
absolute distinction between thought and sense-presentation, he 

^ " Pietro Pomponazzi," by A. H. Douglas, Cambridge, 1910, p. 26. 
2 " De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas." 



ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 35 

traced the play of intelligence through the lower mental 
functions, exhibiting their continuity with the higher modes of 
intellection. Like his predecessors in the schools, Aquinas 
claimed to have returned to the true Aristotelian doctrine, and he 
taught that the soul is the form of the body. But he denied the 
separability or separateness of the active reason and insisted 
that the soul is a unitary being ; consistent adherence to 
Aristotle's principles would then have led him to the denial of 
immortality. This, of course, was impossible to him ; therefore, 
instead of binding fast the reason in the body together with the 
nutritive and sensitive faculties, he rather set free all alike from 
the body and declared the whole unitary soul to be immortal : 
the soul is the form of the body, but it is the form in a new 
sense, for it is a " separable form." 

In this new doctrine of the soul as a separable form, Aquinas 
attempted to combine the teaching of Aristotle with the Neo- 
platonic notion of a spiritual substance. The leading features of his 
psychology, and the nature of the arguments on which he relied 
for the proof of human immortality, have been concisely stated by 
a Roman Catholic writer in the following passage : " The keynote 
to Thomistic metaphysical psychology is the essential distinction 
between a lower or sensuous, and a higher or rational, grade of 
consciousness. The essential irreducibility of attention, abstrac- 
tion, comparison, reasoning, self-consciousness, and free will to 
organic processes, such as those of the external senses, the 
imagination and the sensuous memory, is the ground of spirituality 
and immortality. The latter phenomena are accounted for by 
admitting the co-operation of the soul or vital principle with the 
organic co-factor ; the former demand intrinsic independence of 
the organism for their display, and hence point to an inorganic 
principle as their exclusive subject. Thought is not a passive 
transformation of sensations ; an inner attentive energy of the 
mind {intellectus agens) disengages at first the essentials of the 
sensuous presentation {abstrahit essentiani), and then the mind 
\tse\i {intellectus passivus), out of this prepared datum, proceeds to 
generate the pure forms of thought {exprimere intelligendd). This 
was an application of the Aristotelic theory of the ' active and 
passive intellect ' to the problem of the bridge between sensation 
and conception. The intellect is acknowledged to be objectively 
dependent on sense for the acquisition of the materials of its know- 
ledge ; it is subjectively independent of the organism, however, in 



36 BODY AND MIND 

the display of its irreducible activities of thought and volition. 
This intrinsic independence of the organism which the soul shows 
(even while united with the body and conditioned by the health 
or disease of the imagination and memory) by the very fact of its^ 
being the exclusive subject of its own higher functions, is the'' 
proof of spirituality and the pledge of immortality. This view of 
St Thomas does not imply an ' anivia separata ' but an ' aniina 
separabilis! There is only one specific substance in man — the 
compound self or ego. The soul was not a mere thinking; 
machine, but the life-giving principle of the body as well, 
discharging the several functions of thought, feeling, and volition, 
either by itself or conjointly with the organism." ^ There was here 
a distinct advance towards the attitude adopted by those moderns 
who defend the conception of the soul. 

Although Aquinas attributed immortality to the whole of the 
human soul, including the vegetative and sensitive powers, he 
maintained that the souls of animals are inseparable from their 
bodies and that they perish with themx. Like Augustine and 
other Fathers, he denied the Platonic doctrine of the pre- 
existence of the soul, maintaining that each soul is created at the 
moment the body is ready for its operation. 

During the long period between the great age of Greek 
philosophy and the Renascence of European learning, the 
conception of the soul was thus refined and developed under the 
influence of theological speculation, until it became set over 
against matter as a purely spiritual principle of a radically 
different nature, an immortal being temporarily associated with 
the body and intervening in its material processes with intelligent 
purposive activity. But during the same period there were not 
wanting speculations on the lines of the Pre-Socratic materialistic , 
philosophers of Greece, made under the influence of natural 
science, rather than of theology. 

In the last century B.C. the Roman poet, Lucretius, gave a 
complete exposition of Epicurean Materialism in the famous 
poem " De Rerum Natura " ; and at the same time developed the 
theory in certain respects. His fundamental argument against 
the separability of the soul was one which has been reproduced 
and relied upon by materialists of all later ages ; " the soul is born 

^Article, "St Thomas," in Baldwin's "Dictionary of Philosophy and Psy- 
chology." 



ANIMISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES 37 

with the body, it grows and decays with the body, therefore it 
perishes with the body." He embodied the notion, first suggested 
by Empedocles, " that all the adaptation to be found in the uni- 
verse, and especially in organic life, is merely a special case of 
the infinite possibilities of mechanical events " ; -^ a suggestion of 
great importance for the materialistic scheme, since it remained 
as the only materialistic explanation of the apparently teleo- 
logical facts of nature, until in the nineteenth century Darwinism 
supplied a less inadequate one. 

Lucretius found himself compelled by the observation of 
animal behaviour to make at least one assumption not strictly 
compatible with the pure materialistic atomisjn of Democritus 
and Epicurus ; namely, he assumed that the atoms move not 
always in straight lines, but have the power of deviating sponta- 
neously from the straight path. He recognized two forms of soul, 
or soul and spirit ianinia and animus) ; nevertheless " both are 
corporeal and are composed of the smallest, roundest and most 
mobile atoms." ^ Lucretius, like Epicurus, seems to have felt the 
difficulty of boldly asserting that the motion of atoms is sensa- 
tion, and sought to mitigate it by dwelling on the exceeding fine- 
ness of the soul-atoms. 

Galen, the celebrated Greek philosopher and anatomist who 
practised surgery in Rome in the later part of the second century 
of our era, studied the structure and functions of the body by 
means of dissection. He established the connexion of the nerves 
with the central nervous system, and showed that the brain 
is somehow intimately concerned in our mental life. He taught 
that the brain is the seat of the soul and the medium through 
which the sensations are produced.^ 

. Galen's teaching did much to give currency to the doctrine of 
" animal spirits," which figured largely in all later physiological 
writings until very recent times. Spirits {Spirittis) of many 
kinds played a great part in the cosmology and physiology of 
the Neoplatonic Scholastic philosophy ; and early in the Middle 
Ages, Galen's doctrine of the animal spirits was fused with the 
Aristotelian psychology ; thus arose that conception of spiritus 

^ A. Lange, " History of Materialism," vol. i. p. 138. 

^ Lange, op. cit., p. 146. 

* The honour of having first demonstrated the intimate connection of the brain 
with our mental life is sometimes attributed to Alcmseon of Crotona (500 B.C.). 
And it is said that Theophilus of Alexandria (300 B.C.) distinguished the sensory 
from the motor nerves. 



SS BODY AND MIND 

miimalis distilled in the brain from the spuHtus vitalis of the 
blood, which at a later period was taken up by Descartes into his 
system. This conception of " spiritus," which came into the 
culture tradition of the Middle Ages from so many different 
sources, owed its deep hold to the fact that it seemed to bridge 
the gulf between the sensible and the supersensible, a need which 
was felt as well by the Neoplatonists as by the Christian theo- 
logians, by Lucretius as well as by Augustine and the followers 
of Descartes ; for spiritus was the subtlest kind of matter.^ 

It is interesting to note that in the thirteenth century the 
philosophers whose speculations were of a naturalistic tendency, 
especially those of the University of Paris, adopted the ingenious 
subterfuge of distinguishing two forms of truth, the theological 
and the philosophical, in order to free scientific speculation from 
the restrictive influence of the Church ; a practice which is 
paralleled at the present day by the widely prevalent fashion of 
distinguishing between scientific and philosophic truth. To 
confound this teaching by demonstrating the harmony of all 
truth had been one of the principal aims of Aquinas ; but in 
spite of the great authority of his name and doctrine the 
distinction became widely accepted ; and it continued to be so 
well recognized that it was urged by Giordano Bruno in his 
defence before the Inquisition in 1592. It was a symptom of 
the uneasiness of the spirit of inquiry under the bonds imposed 
upon it by the Church. By the loosening of those bonds 
the Renascence gave new life to the problem of the soul, and in 
the sixteenth century it was discussed with a new freedom and a 
renewed vigour. 

^ In the sixteenth century the conception of spiritus was brought bac^ by- 
Paracelsus very nearly to its original form, the ghost-soul ; for he conceived 
spivitus anthropomorphically, peopled all things, great and small, with innumer- 
able demons, and attributed to these all evidences of life and activity. 



CHAPTER III 

ANIMISM AT THE TIME OF THE RENASCENCE OF 
LEARNING 

THE philosophy of the Renascence is rightly held, says 
Professor Hoffding, to have been introduced by the 
treatise of Pietro Pomponazzi on the immortality of the 
soul (" De Immortalitate Animi," 1516). 

Pomponazzi was a voluminous writer and an influential 
teacher in the schools of northern Italy ; he has been called, 
with some reason, the last of the schoolmen and the first modern 
psychologist. His handling of the problem of the soul is re- 
markable for his indifference to authority and for his agnostic 
attitude.^ The century that separated him from Aquinas had 
been filled with the controversy between Thomists and Averroists, 
in which the great question at issue was the relation of the soul 
to reason or intellect. Both parties claimed to adhere to the 
teaching of Aristotle, though their interpretations of that teaching 
were widely different. Pomponazzi approached this problem in 
an independent spirit and, setting aside the rival systems of 
interpretation, went back to Aristotle himself 

Accepting Aristotle's fundamental proposition that the soul 
is the form of the body, he rejected the Mono-psychism of 
Averroes (the doctrine that reason is one divine light which 
shines in upon the souls of men), not only because it seemed to 
him inconsistent with that proposition, but also on the grounds 
that embodiment is of the very nature of intelligence as known 
in man, and that the assumption of a universal reason leaves 
unsolved the problem of the reasoning power of individual men. 

He rejected just as positively the Thomist conception of the 
soul as a self-subsistent and separable form or a spiritual substance 
capable of existing after the death of the body; insisting always 

^ A full account of Pomponazzi and his teaching, based partly on material 
only recently brought to light, has been given by Mr A. H. Douglas (" The Philo- 
sophy and Psychology of Pietro Pomponazzi," Cambridge, 19 10). My brief 
account is extracted from this work. 

39 



40 BODY AND MIND 

on the fact that we have direct knowledge of human intelHgence 
and activity only as it is manifested in bodily life. He thus rejected 
both the " collective immortality " of the Averroists and the indivi- 
dual immortality of the orthodox scholastics, and explicitly taught 
the mortality of the human soul ; this, the most distinctive feature 
of his teaching, naturally produced a great stirring in the schools. 
Yet, in spite of his denial of immortality and his assertion of the 
dependence of all human thought on bodily organs, Pomponazzi 
was not a materialist. Nor was he, of course, an idealist in the 
sense most usually attached to that ambiguous word ; for the 
notion that the material world may be purely a figment of our 
minds had not entered into the current of European speculation ; 
philosophers still accepted unquestioningly the reality and the 
spatial character of physical things. He believed, like most of 
his contemporaries, in the existence of higher intelligences whose 
reason operated in pure universals, abstract and general ideas 
that were not achieved by way of the contemplation of partic- 
ular or concrete objects. These pure intelligences constituted 
the highest part of a hierarchy of beings. " There were according 
to this scheme, three orders of beings — the immaterial and im- 
perishable, including the Deity, and (in their essential nature and 
true being) the spheral Intelligences ; at the other extreme, 
material and mortal, all sublunary beings with the exception of 
man : intermediate between the two, and sharing the attributes 
of both, the composite nature of man." ^ " Belonging to the three 
orders of being, there were three -sorts of " souls." For the 
superior Intelligences were also to be regarded as in a sense the 
informing souls of the spheres to which they belonged. Only 
the difference between them and the human soul was that the act 
of intelligence in them did not depend in any way upon the 
physical spheres to which they were related only as the motor is 
to that which is moved ; knowledge in them was a direct intuition 
and contemplation of abstract and immaterial objects ; whereas 
the soul of man is dependent for the exercise of intelligence upon 
matter tanquam de objecto, and the sensitive soul, or the soul of the 
lower animal, resides in matter tanquam de subjecto as well." ^ 

He held fast to Aristotle's teaching, that reason in man 

operates only with the aid of the presentation in imagination of 

the data of sense ; and this dependence of human reason on sense 

and imagery for its objects was one of his chief grounds for 

^ A. H. Douglas, op. cit., p. 124. ^ Op cit., p. 125. 



ANIMISM AT THE TIME OF THE RENASCENCE 41 

denying the possibility of its separation from the body. A second 
ground for this denial was the unity of the, soul : the intellectual 
soul is one with the sensitive and vegetative soul ; it is merely 
the same soul under a different aspect ; and, since in its lower 
aspects the soul is obviously inseparable from body, the soul as a 
whole must be inseparable from it and incapable of surviving its 
dissolution. He held then that, though man's soul, in so far as 
it is capable of grasping universals, participates in immateriality 
and is allied to the pure Intelligences, this intellectual principle 
is in him so imperfect and rudimentary that it cannot raise him 
above the sphere of the perishable.^ 

Montaigne displayed in his celebrated " Essais " a similarly 
agnostic attitude in face of the problem of the soul, and attacked 
the dogmatism of theologians and philosophers. Contemporary 
with him was the Spaniard, Ludovicus Vives, who is sometimes 
claimed as the founder of psychology as an empirical science. 
He insisted that, properly speaking, we are interested, not in 
knowing what the soul is, but rather how it is active, and that the 
precepts of self-knowledge concern not the nature, but the func- 
tions of the soul. " We find it here asserted, with the greatest 
assurance, that we have directly to deal with mental phenomena 
only, and that empirical psychology can altogether dispense with 
the purely speculative theory concerning the nature of the soul." ^ 
All of which has a strangely modern ring. Nevertheless Vives 
regarded the soul as the principle, not only of conscious life, but 
of life in general ; he regarded the heart as the centre of its vital 
or vegetative activity, the brain as that of its intellectual activity. 
The souls of plants and of animals, he taught, are generated by 

^ The following passage from Pomponazzi's commentary on the " De Anima " 
seems to state his position concisely : " Concerning the intellectual soul I hold, 
in accordance with Aristotle, that it essentially depends on body, both for its 
existence and for its intellection, and can neither exist without body nor operate 
without a corporeal organ. There is no reason to suppose that we think after 
death, but there is reason for believing that in this world we think through a 
corporeal organ in respect of the object. . . . Our soul, in so far as it is a concrete 
intellectual soul, uses in intellection a corporeal organ, and is not altogether 
independent of a corporeal organ. Yet it does not altogether and in every way 
need a corporeal organ, since it does not need it as the ground of its existence. 
In its operation it does not need a body in this way, but in reference to the object 
■of thought it does, because whatever is thought by our mind is thought by means 
of something corporeal " (Douglas, op. cit., p. 96). 

2 Hoffding, op. cit., p. 36. 



42 BODY AND MIND 

the power of matter ; human souls only are immediately created) 
by God. 

In Bernardino Telesio, whose comprehensive work, " De Rerum 
Natura," was published in 1586, the tendency of the philosophy 
of the Renascence to appeal to Nature rather than to Aristotle 
or the Scriptures found a systematic and thoroughgoing exponent. 
His system was thoroughly hylozoistic, i.e. it was metaphysical 
materialism of the kind which regards matter as endowed with 
mental capacities ; and he saw in sense-perception the empirical 
basis of all knowledge. Looking on all matter as animated, he 
taught that human consciousness is but a development of the 
simple feelings of inorganic matter ; he argued, in fact, in the 
modern fashion from the human consciousness to the feeling of 
inorganic matter, according to the principle of continuity. " He 
maintains, that is to say, the impossibility of explaining the 
genesis of consciousness out of matter, unless we suppose matter 
to be originally endowed with consciousness." ^ Telesio did not 
deny a soul to man ; but the soul was, as with the Stoics, but 
the subtlest form of matter. " The spirit to which Telesio con- 
stantly refers as the natural soul, is thought of as wholly corporeal, 
a very delicate, rarefied substance, enclosed within the nervous 
system, and therefore eluding our senses. Its place, the seat of 
the soul, is chiefly the brain, but extends also to the spinal cord, 
the nerves, arteries, veins, and the covering membranes of the 
internal organs. Similar cavities to those visible in the brairt' 
{i.e. the ventricles), the spinal cord and the optic nerves are 
present in all these organs, and it is there that the spirit is 
enclosed, so that it is accessible to any movement from without,, 
and is able to transmit its own movement to these parts, and 
thence to the limbs. The extreme mobility of the spirit, and 
its continuity throughout all the nervous system, are the qualities- 
which fit it to play the part of the soul. . . . Recognizing, that 
the nervous system is in close connection with soul-life, he 
frankly acknowledged that the soul in men differs only in degree 
from the soul of animals." ^ 

" Corporeal, however, though the spirit be, yet it is different 
from the ordinary parts of the body. It is invisible, is akin tO' 

^ Hoffding, op. cit., p. 97. 

2 Article on Telesio by J. Lewis M'Intyre, in " British Journal of Psychology, "■ 
vol. i. 



ANIMISM AT THE TIME OF THE RENASCENCE 43 

the nature of the sun and the sky ; hence the heaviness of a body 
from which the spirit has fled, for it was the upward striving soul 
that lightened it through life : hence also the soul that has left 
the body cannot return, for it flies upward towards its own- 
element, like fire and air." ^ 

Telesio was so far under the influence of the orthodox teach- 
ings of the Church that he assumed, beside the material soul 
in man, a divine non-corporeal soul directly implanted by God, 
which iipites with the material soul. He did not make clear the 
relations between the two souls, and it would seem that this 
additional and superfluous soul was added by Telesio to his 
schem.e either as a prudent concession to the Church, or because 
his philosophical and his theological opinions were formed in 
separate " water-tight compartments " of his mind, while he was 
too honest to accept the current convention which admitted two 
kinds of truth, the theological and the philosophical. " The 
proof or evidence of this divine soul which Telesio offers is that 
men do in fact inquire into supernatural matters, which have no 
reference to their bodily needs, that they find real happiness only 
in the knowledge and pursuit of the divine ; that for these they 
neglect even those bodily needs which the brutes pursue without 
deviation. . . . The divine soul is that in man which understands, 
but it does so only through the natural spirit, and it can under- 
stand only these things, which the spirit offers to it for 
understanding." ^ 

The greatest of the philosophers of the Renascence period, 
Giordano Bruno, made a remarkable attempt to unite an idealistic 
conception of the universe with the principles of physical 
Atomism. He is sometimes claimed as a link between ancient 
and modern Materialism, but only by those who regard one side 
only of his teachings. He distinguished spiritual and material 
substances, although he regarded them as ultimately of one single 
essence, an original and universal substance. Everything that exists 
is animated, and in everything the world-soul operates as the inner 
principle of a motion which is both mechanical and purposive. 
Nevertheless, the soul of the individual is a distinct being ; and 
Bruno favours the belief in transmigration of souls or metempsy- 
chosis. The relation of the individual soul to the world-soul 
remains as obscure as in all other Pantheistic systems. 

Physiology may be said to have been founded during the 
1 Ibid. 2 jj^i^^ 



44 BODY AND MIND 

later part of the Renascence period. It began at once to exert 
upon the conception of the soul an influence of the kind which in 
succeeding centuries, and especially in the nineteenth century, has 
been a principal factor in leading to the rejection of Animism by 
the greater part of the learned world. In the year i 543 Andreas 
Vesalius published his great work, " Fabrica Humani Corporis," 
which was as important for physiology as for anatomy. He 
elaborated the doctrine of animal spirits which had fluttered down 
uncertainly from the ancients. He distinguished an inferior form 
of spirits, the vital spirits which are concerned in the bodily 
functions generally. From the vital spirits brought to the brain by 
the blood, and from the air, which makes its way into the brain 
directly by the pores of the skull, the brain elaborates the animal 
spirits in its ventricles. The animal spirits permeate all parts 
of the nervous system, just as the vital spirit is distributed 
through the arteries. Vesalius recognized also a third variety, 
the natural spirit. These three seem to have been regarded 
by him as three stages of elaboration of the spirit from the 
blood, the natural spirit being made by the liver, the vital 
spirit by the heart, and the animal spirit by the brain ; in the 
third stage it attains so high a degree of refinement that it is to 
be described as " a quality rather than an actual thing." He wrote 
of three corresponding souls — the natural, vital, and the chief 
soul ; but it seems clear that by each of these souls he meant to 
imply nothing more than the sum total of the spirit of the cor- 
responding kind. Vesalius insisted upon the essential similarity of 
the brains of men and animals ; he seems to have held a thoroughly 
materialistic view of the mind, though he cautiously abstained 
from maintaining doctrines that might have brought him into 
conflict with the Church. 

Van Helmont, the leading physiologist of the opening years 
•of the seventeenth century, who thus in point of time belongs to 
the modern period, may be mentioned here ; for his teachings in 
respect to the soul belong rather to the mediaeval than the modern 
period. Van Helmont took up Vesalius' doctrine of the elabora- 
tion of the animal spirits by successive stages, but distinguished six 
such stages. In addition to the animal spirits, he recognized, 
unlike Vesalius, a sensitive and motor soul {aniina sensitiva 
motivaque). " This sensitive soul belongs to man alone ; for, 
speaking truly and thinking correctly, we must say that there is 
no soul residing in plants and in brute beasts. These possess 



ANIMISM AT THE TIME OF THE RENASCENCE 45 

only a certain vital power, which we may perhaps regard as the 
forerunner of a soul. The sensitive soul as it exists in man takes 
to itself the reins of that forerunning governing vital power." 
The sensitive soul is the prime agent of all the acts of the body ;. 
and though it carries out the sensations and movements of the 
body by means of the brain and nerves, its actual seat is the 
orifice of the stomach. This sensitive soul is mortal, and co-exists 
in man with the immortal mind {iiiens ivimortalis). " The 
sensitive soul is, as it were, the husk or shell of the mind, and the 
latter works through it." Before the fall of Adam man possessed 
onh' the immortal mind, which discharged the functions of life. 
" At the fall, God introduced into man the sensitive soul, and with 
it death, the immortal mind retiring within the sensitive soul and 
becoming, as it were, its kernel."^ Van Helmont's teaching as 
regards the soul, a strange chaotic mixture of notions derived 
from many sources, thus forms a link between the doctrines of 
Vesalius and of Descartes. 

1 I have extracted these brief accounts of the teaching of Vesahus and Van 
Helmont respecting the soul from Sir Michael Foster's " History of Physiology."' 



CHAPTER IV 

ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 

THE historians of European thought are agreed in regarding 
the beginning of the seventeenth century as the date 
that separates the distinctively modern from the mediaeval 
period. Of the distinctive features of the modern period two are 
■of predominant importance : first, the rapid and complete eman- 
cipation of scientific and philosophical thought from the fetters 
of the Church, and a complete reversal of their position of sub- 
ordination to theology ; secondly, the increasing definiteness of 
the strictly mechanical conception of nature, the continued and 
astonishing triumphs of this conception in its application to the 
explanation of one field of phenomena after another, and the , 
consequently increasing confidence with which mechanical ex- 
planations were held to be applicable to all events without 
•exception. 

In classical antiquity, Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius 
had projected a mechanical scheme of the world, reducing all 
things to atoms in motion. But their doctrines remained fanciful 
speculations merely, like any others; they had no demonstrative 
force ; the acceptance or rejection of them was as purely a 
matter of individual taste, as the preference of sherry to port, 
■or of Wordsworth to Browning. But in the opening years 
■of the seventeenth century, Kepler and Galileo laid the sure 
foundations of the splendid structure of nineteenth century 
Materialism, by initiating the exact quantitative study of motion ; 
and the work they began has been carried on by a long line of 
brilliant thinkers and investigators — Gassendi, Hobbes, Newton, 
Boyle, Kant, Laplace, Holbach, Mayer, Joule, Helmholz, Kelvin 
— with such striking success that, in our own day, the truth 
■of the purely mechanical conception of nature has become a 
confidently held dogma of the scientific world, accepted not only 
by physicists and chemists, but also by the greater number of the 
biologists, psychologists, and philosophers, as a fundamental prin- 

46 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 47 

ciple to which all their assumptions and conclusions must conform. 
Accordingly, the labours of philosophers have been increasingly 
concerned with attempts to reconcile a belief in spiritual modes of 
action and existence with the mechanical scheme of the world, and 
with attempts to show that the belief in purposive or teleological 
determination is not merely a mythical survival from the dark ages. 

In this great process of the development of modern thought, 
which may without exaggeration be described as the reaction of 
the human mind on the affirmation by the natural sciences of the 
universal sway of mechanical laws, a central place has been 
occupied throughout by the problem of the relation of the mental 
to the physical, of mind to body. 

In all earlier ages men believed implicitly in the real efficiency 
of their wills ; they knew themselves able to imagine alternative 
courses of events in the physical world ; they believed they could 
freely choose to influence this course of events, and that, purpos- 
ing or desiring to see one course realized rather than another, 
they could by their efforts contribute to the realization of their 
purpose. This was the essence of the conception of animation, 
and, in attributing animation to beings other than themselves, men 
attributed to them a similar capacity for teleological determina- 
tion of phenomenal events. Very early in the modern period, 
the work of Kepler, Galileo, Gassendi, and their successors, 
resulted, for the majority of men of science, in the banishment of 
animation (in this full and original sense) from the whole realm of 
inorganic nature. 

In the course of Kepler's own intellectual development this 
decisive step was made : beginning with an animistic conception 
of nature, according to which all things, especially the planets, are 
moved by souls ; he ended by extruding souls entirely from his 
scheme and supplanting them by the conception of forces. And 
Galileo made the decisive step by affirming that " it is only 
possible to understand the qualitative changes in nature when 
these can be traced back to quantitative changes, which means 
here to motions in space." ^ But, with few exceptions, men con- 
tinued to believe in the animation of organic beings ; though the 
Cartesians, it is true, gave up the whole organic realm, with the 
exception of man alone, to the sway of purely mechanical laws 
(an intrinsically unstable compromise which owed its career only 
to the influence of theology). 

^ Hoffding, op. cit., p. 181. 



48 BODY AND MIND 

Thus the soul, especially the human soul, became the centre of 
interest of all the great controversies of the eighteenth century. 
The materialists sought to show that all the phenomena of organic 
life (including human actions) are mechanically explicable, and to 
exhibit human consciousness as entirely dependent upon matter. 
The defence of the conception of animation was conducted along 
two different lines ; on the one hand, the vitalists maintained the 
inadequacy of mechanical principles to explain the physiological 
processes of organic bodies ; on the other hand, philosophers con- 
tinued to demand a soul as the substrate of consciousness and the 
agent of the intellectual activities of man. Then in the nineteenth 
century the rapid progress of mechanical explanations in physi- 
ology and the appearance of the Darwinian principles seemed to' 
deal a final blow at physiological Animism with its vital force ; 
about the same time the discovery that the whole brain is a vast 
and complex system of reflex nervous paths, in which prevails 
unbroken continuity of physical process from sense-organ to 
muscle, seemed to be equally fatal to psychological Animism ; 
while the establishment of the law of conservation of energy 
seemed to clinch the matter in both cases, to establish finally 
the universal sway of the law of mechanical causation throughout 
both organic and inorganic nature, and to secure the final triumph 
of Materialism over Animism. 

These results of the splendid progress of the empirical sciences 
have been accepted by most of the philosophers. And this 
acceptance was not difficult for them ; for they had learned to 
believe that a thoroughgoing Materialism is not the only alterna- 
tive to Animism, but that it is possible to reject Animism without 
accepting those features of thoroughgoing Materialism which 
render it intellectually disreputable. Two such alternatives have 
gained wide acceptance among them. On the one hand, a 
way was found which seemed to make possible the combination 
of mechanical Materialism, of even the most extreme form, with 
Animism, and even with a return to the doctrine of universal 
animation, namely, by sacrificing the most essential element of 
Animism(the power of teleological determination) and retaining only 
as the connotation of animation the capacity for feeling or conscious- 
ness. This is the alternative of which Fechner was the principal ex- 
ponent. On the other hand, philosophers had learnt from Hume, 
Berkeley, and Kant how, while giving up Animism, to withdraw 
themselves to a position from which they could look down upon both 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 49 

Materialism and Animism with indifference, namely, the subjectivist 
position from which matter and soul are regarded as equally unreal, 
as equally existing only as ideas in one's own consciousness.^ 

Such, in briefest outline, is the history of the conception of the 
soul in the modern period. This history we have now to follow 
in a little more detail, in order to arrive at a clear understanding 
of the present state of opinion and controversy regarding the 
soul. I shall first describe the teachings regarding the psycho- 
physical problem of the principal thinkers who have dealt with it 
in the modern period ; and afterwards I shall trace those develop- 
ments of the natural sciences by which Animism has been, in 
the opinion of the great majority of scientists and philosophers, 
driven finally from the field. 

Although Descartes set himself to lay anew the foundations of 
philosophy, a large number of the notions and distinctions thrown 
into the European culture-stream by his predecessors were incor- 
porated in his system. His principal achievement was to clarify 
many of the distinctions and notions current in his time, and to set 
them in definite relations to one another in a single large scheme 
of things, ^ 

Descartes distinguished sharply between matter and spirit,, 
defining the former as extended substance, the latter as inex- 
tended thinking substance. He held that the whole material 
world and all its processes are to be explained mechanically by 
means of the conceptions of extension, divisibility, and mobility. 
He was the first of the moderns to attempt to give a mechanical 
theory of the evolution of the world, teaching that purely mechanical 
explanation in terms of matter and motion must apply not only to 
the planetary movements and to all the realm of inorganic matter, 
but also to the processes of organic bodies ; physiology was to be 
made wholly a branch of mechanical science. His confidence in 
this bold assertion was greatly strengthened by Harvey's explana- 
tion of the circulation of the blood, according to the mechanical 
principles ; for this seemed to show that the general laws of motion 
are valid within, as well as without, the body. He wrote : " All 
the functions of the body follow naturally from the sole disposition 
of its organs, just in the same way that the movements of a clock 

^ I am aware that many readers will regard this as an unfair description of 
the attitudes of anti-animistic philosophers ; but I shall attempt to justify it in 
later chapters. 



so BODY AND MIND 

or other self-acting machine or automaton follow from the arrange- 
ment of its weights and wheels. So that there is no reason on 
account of its functions to conceive that there exists in the body 
any soul whether vegetative or sensitive, or any principle of move- 
ment other than the blood and its animal spirits agitated by the 
heat of the fire which burns continually in the heart, and which 
does not differ in nature from any of the other fires which are 
met with in inanimate bodies." He devised a hypothetical 
scheme for the explanation of all the bodily movements of animals 
in a purely mechanical fashion ; and, though this was little more 
than a brilliant guess, it came strangely near the modern concep- 
tion of reflex automatism. Not content with this, he attempted to 
shov/ in more or less detail how the whole human body may be 
adequately conceived as a machine working on purely mechanical 
principles. Descartes thus definitely gave up the vegetative func- 
tions of the soul, and taught that animals are inanimate machines 
having no capacity for thought.^ But man enjoys consciousness, 
or the power of thought ; and this fact, which cannot be ex- 
plained from the motions of matter, necessitates the assumption 
that in him the thinking substance is somehow conjoined with 
matter, that an immaterial soul co-operates with the material 
body, intervenes in its otherwise purely mechanical operations, 
and is in turn affected by these. The assumption of the soul in 
man is also necessitated, he held, by the fact that the bodily 
movements of men, unlike those of the animals, reveal by their 
complexity and their nice adjustment to an infinity of varied 
situations that they are guided by reason. 

A third line of reasoning by which he justified the conception 
of the soul runs as follows : " Because I l<now with certitude that 
I exist, and because, in the meantime, I do not observe that aught 
necessarily belongs to my nature or essence beyond my being a 
thinking thing, I rightly conclude that my essence consists only 
in my being a thinking being. And although I may, or rather, 
as I will shortly say, although I certainly do possess a body with 
which I am very closely conjoined : nevertheless, because, on the 
one hand, I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in as far as 
I am only a thinking and unextended thing, and as, on the other 

^ Descartes' doctrine seems to imply the denial of all psychical life or con- 
sciousness to animals ; and it has generally been interpreted in this way. But 
Descartes, inconsistently enough, attributed mere sensation and feeling to the 
animals. 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 51 

hand, I possess a distinct idea of body, in as far as it is only an 
extended and unthinking thing, it is certain that I myself am 
entirely and truly distinct from my body, and may exist without 
it." ^ Again, he wrote that we " perceive clearly that neither 
extension nor figure nor local motion . . . pertains to our nature, 
and nothing save thought alone ; it then becomes plain that I am 
not the assemblage of members called the human body; I am not 
a thin and penetrating air diffused through all these members, or 
wind, or flame, or vapour, or breath ; for the notion we have of 
our mind precedes that of any corporeal thing, and is more certain, 
seeing that we still doubt whether there is any body in existence, 
while we already perceive that we think." He argued also that 
the reasoning soul " can by no means be educed from the power 
of matter, but must be expressly created ; it is of a nature wholly 
independent of the body, and consequently is not liable to die 
with the latter ; and, finally, because no other causes are observed 
capable of destroying it, we are naturally led to judge that it is 
immortal." 

Descartes adopted the conception of animal spirits current 
among the physiologists of his time ; but he divested it of all 
animistic meaning ; for him the animal spirits were purely 
material. These animal spirits consist of the finest particles 
contained in the blood, which are filtered from the arteries 
through minute pores into the central cavity or ventricle of the 
brain. From this ventricle they pass into the nerves, and, by 
flowing down the motor nerves and from them into the muscles, 
they cause the latter to become distended laterally, and therefore 
to shorten and so bring about the movements of the parts of the 
body. According to Descartes' scheme of the nervous system, the 
motor nerves open from the ventricle of the brain by valved 
mouths ; the sensory nerves also have their central terminations 
in the ventricle, each being connected with the valve of one of 
the motor nerves ; when, then, any impression is made on a sense- 
organ, the sensory nerve affected plays the part of a bell-wire, 
it pulls open the valve to which it is attached and so allows the 
animal spirits to flow down the corresponding motor nerve and to 
bring about the appropriate reflex movement. Descartes, having 
devised this mechanical scheme of reflex action, and holding that 
all other bodily processes also are purely mechanical, did not find 
it necessary to assume, as was done by Augustine and others of 
1 Meditation VI., Veitch's translation. 



52 BODY AND MIND 

his predecessors, that the soul is present in every part of the 
body ; accordingly he assigned it a seat in the pineal gland, or 
rather he assumed that it acts on, and is acted on by, the 
body only through the medium of this part of the brain ; being 
led to this view by the fact of the central position of the pineal 
gland in close proximity to the ventricle. (This was an unfor- 
tunate shot in the dark ; for modern research has shown that no 
part of the brain is less concerned in our mental processes than 
the pineal gland, which seems to be a vestigial remnant of a 
median eye carried on the top of the cranium by a remote 
ancestor of the human species.) The soul, he taught, is able, by 
inclining the pineal gland this way or that, to direct the motion of 
the animal spirits of the brain towards this or that motor nerve, 
and to secure in this way the execution of the actions that 
it wills' — a rude foreshadowing of the conception of guidance 
without work done, which in more recent times has been adduced 
as the probable mode of action of the soul on the bodily 
processes. 

It is noteworthy that Descartes distinguished two kinds of 
memory : — " one of material things which depends on after-effects 
or traces of preceding excitations of the brain, and the other of 
mental things, depending on permanent traces in consciousness 
itself. Thought proper {intellectio) and imagination {iinaginatio) 
may be distinguished from one another by this, that in thought 
proper the soul alone is active, while in imagination it makes 
use of sensuous images. Imagination, like perception and the 
material remembrance of the soul, only belongs to the soul in as 
far as it is united with the body ; but the soul in its pureness, 
aniina pura, can be thought without either imagination or per- 
ception. The difference between instinct and will similarly rests 
on the fact that while the former arises in the body, the will 
belongs to the soul itself. . . . The emotions are due to the 
influence of the body upon the soul ; but the inner feelings arise 
in the soul as a consequence of its own thoughts and judgments." 
Thus Professor Hoffding summarizes the main points of Descartes*^ 
consistently dualistic psychology.-*^ 

The teachings of Descartes exerted a far-reaching influence 
on subsequent science and philosophy, of which, as regards the 
conception of the soul, we may distinguish four principal and 
diverse lines. First, his description of the soul as an immaterial 

1 Op. cit., p. 238. 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 53 

inextended being, interacting with the body through the medium 
of the brain and nervous system only, gave the animistic theory a 
more definite and more defensible form than it had previously 
received. Secondly, by attributing to the soul the function of 
thought or of conscious activities only and denying to it the 
vegetative functions commonly attributed to it by his predecessors, 
he completed the separation of the conceptions of vitalizing 
principle and thinking principle which some of his predecessors 
had proposed ; and it is largely owing to his influence that this 
separation has continued to the present day, the former surviving 
as the vital force of the vitalistic physiologists, the latter as the 
thinking feeling willing soul, the ground of all individual conscious- 
ness. Thirdly, by his bold assertion of the purely mechanical 
nature of all animal behaviour and by his ingenious speculations 
in support of this assertion, he hastened the advent of the time 
when all the behaviour of men also should be asserted with equal 
confidence to be the product of purely mechanical factors. Fourthly, 
by distinguishing so sharply between the natures of soul and 
body respectively, he brought into clearer view the difficulty of 
understanding the mode of interaction of soul and body, and 
thus provoked attempts to find other formulations of the psycho- 
physical relation. 

Descartes' own disciples were not slow to raise this difficulty : 
How can there be reciprocal action between two such wholly 
unlike things as body and soul ? And some of them, notably 
Geulincx and Malebranche, said : It is not possible ; there can 
be no such interaction ; the correspondence that clearly obtains 
between our thought and our bodily processes is maintained by 
the continual interposition of God, a change in one being the 
occasion for God to produce a corresponding change in the other. 
This doctrine of " Occasional Causes," or " Occasionalism," devised 
by Geulincx to meet the difficulty of conceiving psycho-physical 
interaction, was extended by Malebranche to the explanation of 
all transient action. 

A different answer to this problem of the correspondence of 
bodily and mental changes — one that has had a greater influence 
upon subsequent thought — was given by Leibnitz in his doctrine 
of pre-established harmony. This can only be understood in 
connexion with his metaphysical doctrine of monads. Leibnitz 
rejected Descartes' distinction of thinking and extended sub- 



54 BODY AND MIND 

stances ; he regarded extension as merely phenomenal, and sought 
to describe in other terms the reality which appears to us as 
extended matter. He conceived all things after the pattern of 
that of which he had the most immediate awareness, namely, the 
unity of his own self as a thinking conscious being. He taught 
that the universe created by God consists of an infinite number of 
real beings, each different from every other, each containing from 
the first the potentiality of its whole subsequent history, each 
indivisible and incapable of being destroyed save by an act of 
God. These enduring beings or substances are the monads, the 
elements of which all things are composed. The soul of each man 
and of each animal is such a monad ; but the soul of man is a 
monad of a higher order than all others and is properly called a 
mind, because its consciousness is richer and its psychical activities 
are of a higher order ; it knows more of the world, or as Leibnitz 
says, it expresses or reflects the world more fully and knows also 
God. We learn from our experience of sleep, dreams, states of 
fainting, dizziness, confusion, and coma, that the human soul passes 
through states of consciousness of many degrees of clearness and 
fullness ; and, as we may suppose the soul of any one of the higher 
animals to be incapable of a clearer and fuller consciousness than 
that of our duller half-waking states, so the soul of an animalcule 
must be supposed to be a monad enjoying a consciousness which is 
to that of the higher animal, as this is to the fully waking con- 
sciousness of man. But there is no lower limit to this descending 
scale of psychical life;' and what we commonly call a mass of inert 
matter, is the phenomenon or appearance to us of an aggregation 
of monads of a still lower order than the soul of the animalcule.^ 
Our bodies, then, and the bodies of animals are orderly aggre- 

1 In the'following paragraphs of the " Monadologie " this scheme is expressed, 
perhaps more succinctly than in any other of Leibnitz's writings : " All simple 
substances or created monads may be called Entelechies because they have in 
themselves a certain perfection. There is in them a sufficiency Avhich makes 
them the source of their internal activities, and renders them, so to speak, in- 
corporeal automatons." " If we wish to designate as soul everything which has 
perceptions and desires in the general sense that I have just explained, all simple 
substances or created monads could be called souls. But since feeling is some- 
thing more than a mere perception, I think that the general name of Monad or 
Entelechy should suffice for simple substances which have only perception, while 
we may reserve the term Soul for those whose perception is more distinct and 
is accompanied by memory. We experience in ourselves a state where we 
remember nothing and where we have no distinct perception, as in periods of 
fainting, or when we are overcome by a profound, dreamless sleep. In such 
a state the soul does not sensibly differ at all from a simple Monad. As this 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 55 

gations or systems of monads belonging to many different levels 
in this scale of psychical being ; and the soul of each man or 
animal is but the dominant monad of one such system. Leibnitz 
maintained (though why he did so is not clear to my mind) that 
every soul exists always in association with some body, i.e. some 
system of lower monads.^ What, then, is the nature of the relation 
between soul and body, between that higher monad which is the 
soul of the man and that system of lower monads which is his 
body ? Leibnitz rejected both Descartes' doctrine of interaction 
and the doctrine of occasional causes. In fact, he rejected com- 
pletely the conception of causal interaction between monads. The 
monads do not influence one another in any way. How then does 
he account for the harmony of the world-order, including the cor- 
respondence between the changes of our bodies and the changes 
of our consciousness ? The temporal correspondence of changes in 
all monads is due to the harmony of their natures pre-established 
by God at the moment of their creation. This bold and original 
speculation cannot be more clearly expressed than in Leibnitz's 
own words : " Every present state of a simple substance (i.e. of a 
Monad) is a natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a 
way that its present is big with its future." ^ And again : " The 
union of the soul with the body, and even the action of one sub- 
stance upon another, consists only in the perfect mutual accord, 
expressly established by the ordinance of the first creation, by 
virtue of which each substance following its own laws falls in with 
"what the other requires, and thus the activities of the one follow or 
accompany the activities or changes of the other." ^ In seeking 
to make clear to others this conception, as applied to the relation 
of soul to body, he wrote, " Suppose two clocks, or two watches, 
which perfectly keep time together. Now that may happen in 
three ways. The first way consists in the mutual influence of 
each clock upon the other ; the second, in the care of a man who 

state, however, is not permanent and the soul can recover from it, the soul is 
something more." 

Again, " But the knowledge of eternal and necessary truths is that which 
distinguishes us from mere animals and gives us reason and the sciences, thus 
raising us to a knowledge of ourselves and of God. This is what is called in us 
the Rational Soul or the Mind " (" Monadology," paragraphs 18, 19, 20 and 29, 
Montgomery's translation). 

^ " Neither are there souls wholly separate from bodies, or bodiless spirits. 
God alone is without body" (" Monadologie," paragraph 72). 

" " Monadologie," paragraph 22. 

3 Letter to Arnauld of March 23rd, 1690. 



56 BODY AND MIND 

looks after them ; the third, in their own accuracy. Now, put 
the soul and the body in the place of the two clocks. Their 
agreement or sympathy will also arise in one of these three ways. 
The way of influence is that of common philosophy, but as we 
cannot conceive material particles, or immaterial species, or 
qualities which can pass from one of these substances into the 
other, we are obliged to give up this opinion. The way of 
assistance is that of the system of occasional causes ; but I hold 
that this is to introduce Deus ex tnachina in a natural and ordinary 
matter ; in which it is reasonable that God should intervene only 
in the way in which He supports all the other things of nature. 
Thus there remains only my hypothesis, that is to say, the way 
of the harmony pre-established by a contrivance of the Divine 
foresight, which has from the beginning formed each of these 
substances in so perfect, so regular, and accurate a manner that 
by merely following its own laws each substance is in harmony 
with the other, just as if there were a mutual influence between 
them." 

Thus Leibnitz solved to his own satisfaction the problem of 
the relation between soul and body. His scheme raises many 
difficulties that he did not adequately deal with. Many of these 
were pointed out by his correspondent, Arnauld, especially the 
problems raised by the association of each soul with a succession 
of bodies in the course of its career from the beginning to the end 
of the world. This difficulty, like most others, especially every 
problem of causation, Leibnitz solved by the easy method of 
invoking the designing skill of God at the creation of the world. 
In thus abolishing all causation and transient action from his 
scheme of the created world, and reducing the relation between 
changes to mere temporal concomitance, Leibnitz really abolished 
science ; for the vvfcprk of science is to discover the causal relations 
between events. 

The objection may be stated more fully in the following way. 
To answer, in face of any particular problem, this event takes 
place because God ordained it so, is no explanation ; or we may 
say that, like the explanation of all events offered by the extreme 
Occasionalists, namely, the direct interposition of God, the proposed 
explanation is of no value because it explains too much. Admit- 
ting, as Leibnitz does, the existence of souls and bodies as distinct 
beings, the question all the world asks is : Why do certain 
changes in each particular soul correspond in a regular manner 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 57 

with certain changes in one particular body ? And Leibnitz puts 
us off with the answer — Because God has ordained it so. 

Moreover, Leibnitz's scheme of monads does not enable him 
to get rid of dualism. He maintains with Descartes and Spinoza 
the strictly mechanical ordering of nature, yet he maintains also 
the teleological character of psychical activity : " Souls act in 
accordance with the laws of final causes, through their desires, 
purposes and means. Bodies act in accordance with the laws of 
•efficient causes or of motion. The two realms, that of efficient 
causes and that of final causes, are in harmony, each with the 
■other." ^ This parallelism of the mechanical and of the teleo- 
logical we shall have to notice again as a principal difficulty of 
all systems akin to that of Leibnitz. It is true that in the 
" Theodicee " he gives the primacy to teleological determination, 
but only at the cost of inconsistency with his earlier doctrine. 

Further, Leibnitz finds himself driven to represent human souls 
as differing in several very important respects from other monads ; 
thus he writes : " With regard to spirits, that is to say, substances 
which think and which are able to recognize God and to discover 
eternal truths, I hold that God governs. them according to laws 
different from those with which He governs the rest of substances," 
namely, " according to the spiritual laws of justice, of which the 
others are incapable." ^ Again, " Such a creation is true, I admit, 
only in the case of reasoning souls, and hold that all forms which 
'do not think, were created at the same time that the world was " ^ ; 
and yet again, " Intellects or souls which are capable of reflection 
and of knowing the eternal truths and God (i.e. human souls), 
have many privileges that exempt them from the transformation 
of bodies." * 

It was no doubt owing to these unsatisfactory features of the 
doctrine of pre-established harmony that it never became generally 
accepted as the solution of the psycho-physical problem. 

Descartes' sharpening of the psycho-physical problem pro- 
voked Spinoza to suggest a solution which has had, perhaps, a 
greater influence on subsequent thought than that of Leibnitz. 
Although in point of time this suggestion preceded Leibnitz's, I 
have dealt with it after the latter, because Leibnitz does not 

^ " Monadologie," paragraph 79. 

^Letter to Arnauld, October 6th, 1687. ^ Ibid. 

* Letter to Arnauld, March 23rd, 1690. 



58 BODY AND MIND 

mention it among the possible solutions, and because it seems 
to come after his scheme in the natural order of evolution of 
philosophical speculation. 

Spinoza taught that soul and body are not two distinct 
substances or things, and that we must regard thought and exten- 
sion as but two of the many attributes or aspects of the one real 
substance, which is God. Reverting to Leibnitz's illustration of the 
two clocks that keep time, we may say that Spinoza's suggestion, 
would constitute a fourth way of explaining their concomitance^ 
and would consist in saying that the two clocks are but two- 
reflections at different angles of one real clock. Or we may alter 
the illustration a little, and may liken the relation of mental to- 
bodily events in any individual to the relation between the visual 
and the auditory presentations of one clock ; the auditory and 
the visual appearances exhibit regular and orderly temporal rela- 
tions, but there is no direct causal relation between them : the 
seen movements of the hands and the sounds heard are two of 
many modes in which the clock might be apprehended. In 
Spinoza's own words : " The mind and the body are one and the 
same thing, conceived at one time under the attribute of thought, 
and at another under that of extension. For this reason the 
order and concatenation of things is one, whether nature be con- 
ceived under this or that attribute, and consequently the order of 
the actions and passions of our body is coincident in nature with 
the order of the actions and passions of the mind." 

Spinoza thus sought to abolish at one stroke the distinction 
between body and soul as material and immaterial substances^ 
which the labours of philosophers through two thousand years 
had gradually evolved. It was a bold attempt to avoid the 
difficulties of both Animism and Materialism. 

Like the doctrines of occasional causes and of pre-established 
harmony, the hypothesis was framed to meet, or rather to avoid,, 
the difficulty of conceiving causal interaction between mind and 
matter ; but, unlike the authors of those doctrines, Spinoza did 
not reject the causal relation as illusory, a figment of our minds 
only ; rather he held that the causal relation obtains between the 
real events that we apprehend under the two modes of material and 
mental events, and that this real causal relation is likewise appre- 
hended by us under the two modes of material or mechanical and 
of mental causation. Hence each series appears for us as a closed 
causal series, the two series having no causal interaction ; " so long 



ANIMISM IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 59 

as things are regarded as mental phenomena we must explain the 
order of nature or the causal connexion by the attribute of 
thought alone ; and so long as we regard them as material 
phenomena, we must explain the whole order of nature by the 
attribute of extension alone," ^ 

" If," says Professor Hoffding, " we ask for the real reason 
why the mental side of existence cannot be explained by the 
material, nor the material by the mental, we shall find the answer 
in Spinoza's ideal of explanation through causes, according to 
which cause and effect must resemble one another. In a letter 
Spinoza says clearly : ' If two things have nothing in common 
with one another, the one cannot be the cause of the other : for, 
since there would be nothing in the effect that was also in the 
cause, everything that was in the effect would have arisen out of 
nothing.' If we keep this fundamental principle consistently 
before us we shall have the key to Spinoza's whole system."^ 

The middle yearsof the seventeenth century produced yet another 
reaction against Descartes' spiritualistic Dualism in the Materialism 
of Thomas Hobbes, a Materialism as consistent and thorough- 
going as Materialism can be. For Hobbes, who was acquainted 
with the works and the persons of Galileo and Gassendi, every- 
thing that exists is corporeal, body and substance are one and the 
same ; the essential attributes of body are extension and motion ; 
all change is motion. Sensation is nothing else but motion ; 
pleasure is really nothing but motion about the heart ; " mens' 
nihil aliud erit prcBterqiiani motus in partibus qiiibusdmn corporis 
organicir 

Thus the thinkers of the seventeenth century brought to a 
sharper issue than ever before the problem of the soul and of its 
relation to the body, and formulated definitely and clearly four 
distinct solutions of the problem ; namely, the animistic Dualism 
of Descartes, the parallelistic Animism of Leibnitz, the identity- 
hypothesis of Spinoza, the Materialism of Hobbes, each of which 
has continued to find respectable supporters up to the present 
day. These four rival doctrines, each associated with the name 
of one of the four most celebrated philosophers of the seventeenth 
century, were handed on to the eighteenth century. No wonder, 
then, that the problem of the soul was eagerly discussed, and 
that, as Lange says, the human soul was the point around whick 
^ Hoffding, op. cit. 310. ^Op. cit., p. 310. 



6o BODY AND MIND 

all controversies turned in the eighteenth century.^ Descartes 
had taught that man is compounded of soul and body acting and 
reacting upon one another ; Leibnitz that, though he is com- 
pounded of soul and body, these do not influence one another ; 
Spinoza that mind and body are equally real or unreal, because 
but two aspects of one reality ; Hobbes that man consists of body 
alone, the soul being a mere figment of his imagination. 

Two possibilities only remained, namely, first, that the soul 
alone is real, the body being fictitious or appearance only ; 
secondly, that both body and soul are fictitious. And the 
ingenuity of the eighteenth century proved equal to the task of 
propounding and maintaining these doctrines also ; before the 
century passed away, these two were added to the list of rival 
■doctrines by philosophers, namely, Bishop Berkeley and David 
Hume, whose penetration and high reputation secured for their 
views a respectful hearing and a career whose end no man can 
yet foresee. 

^ op. cii., vol. i. p. 244. 



CHAPTER V 
ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 

IN the metaphysic of the Schoolmen the notion of 
" substance " occupied a position of fundamental import- 
ance. In their mouths, the word implied something 
permanently self-identical and unchanging beneath the flux of 
appearances, an unalterable substratum or core of real being which 
supports the accidents, qualities, or attributes in which substance 
manifests itself ; and, as we have seen, the soul was generally 
defined as an immaterial substance. The philosophers of the 
seventeenth century had continued to use the word substance 
in a similar way, though the meanings they attached to the 
word were not strictly identical. Descartes had assumed sub- 
stances of two kinds, the thinking and the extended substances ;.. 
for Spinoza, all substance was one only ; for Leibnitz, a substance 
is an ultimate logical subject, and the infinitely numerous monads 
were such substances. The philosophical controversies of the 
eighteenth century revolved around this notion of substance. 
Conservative thought held fast to substance as to a sheet- 
anchor ; progressive thought turned to rend it to tatters, and 
left it at the end of the century covered with contempt, merely 
a discredited shadowy remnant of its former self. And the fate 
of the notion of the soul was closely bound up with that of 
substance ; it suffered discredit in an almost equal degree. 

In the attack upon " substance," John Locke was the fore- 
runner of both Hume and Berkeley ; and, with that temperate 
sagacity which characterizes all his writings, he anticipated the 
reasonings of both his brilliant successors upon the psycho- 
physical problem, without, however, accepting the extreme 
conclusions of either. He wrote, " When we talk or think of 
any particular sort of corporeal substances, as horse, stone, etc., 
though the idea we have of either of them be but the com- 
plication or collection of those several simple ideas of sensible 
qualities which we used to find united in the thing called 

61 



62 BODY AND MIND 

" horse " or " stone," yet because we cannot conceive how they 
should subsist alone, nor one in another, we suppose them exist- 
ing in, and supported by, some common subject ; which support 
we denote by the name " substance," though it be certain we 
have no clear or distinct idea of that thing we suppose a support. 
The same happens concerning the operations of the mind ; 
namely, thinking, reasoning, fearing, etc., which we concluding 
not to subsist of themselves, nor apprehending how they can 
belong to body, or be produced by it, we are apt to think 
these the actions of some other substance which we call " spirit," 
whereby yet it is evident, that having no other idea or notion of 
matter, but something wherein those many sensible qualities 
which affect our senses do subsist ; by supposing a substance 
wherein thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of moving, 
etc., do subsist ; we have as clear a notion of the substance of 
spirit as we have of body ; the one being supposed to be (without 
knowing what it is) the substratum to those simple ideas we have 
from without ; and the other supposed (with a like ignorance of 
v^^hat it is) to be the substratum to those operations which we 
experiment in ourselves within. It is plain, then, that the idea 
of corporeal substance in matter is as remote from our conceptions 
and apprehensions as that of spiritual substance, or spirit ; and 
therefore, from our not having any notion of the substance of 
spirit, we can no more conclude its non-existence than we can, 
for the same reason, deny the existence of body ; it being as 
rational to affirm there is no body, because we have no clear and 
distinct idea of the substance of matter, as to say there is no 
spirit, because we have no clear and distinct idea of the substance 
of a spirit." ^ That is to say, Locke saw that our conceptions of 
matter and of soul are alike hypotheses which we make for the 
better interpretation of our experience and the guidance of our 
actions, and that what knowledge we have of them is not direct, 
but is hypothetical and inferential only, is inferred from the facts 
of immediate experience. 

Locke strongly insisted that the conceptions of an immaterial 
soul and of its action upon the body involved no more obscurity 
than those of material substance and of the action of one 
body upon another. " If any one say, he knows not what it is 
thinks in him, he means, he knows not what the substance is 
of that thinking thing ; no more, say I, knows he what the sub- 
^ "An Essay on the Human Understanding," Bk. II. chap, xxiii. 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 63 

stance is of that solid thing. Farther, if he says, he knows not 
how he thinks, I answer, Neither knows he how he is extended ; 
how the solid parts of body are united or cohere together to make 
extension," ^ And in the following passage he anticipated Lotze's 
reply to those who raise the difficulty of the Occasionalists. 
*' Another idea we have of body, is the power of communication 
of motion by impulse ; and of our souls, the power of exciting 
motion by thought. These ideas, the one of body, the other of 
our minds, every day's experience clearly furnishes us with ; but 
if here again we inquire how this is done, we are equally in the 
dark. For in the communication of motion by impulse, wherein 
as much motion is lost to one body as is got to the other, which 
is the ordinariest case, we can have no other conception but of the 
passing of motion out of one body into another ; which, I think, 
is as obscure and inconceivable, as how our minds move or stop 
our bodies by thought ; which we every moment find they do." ^ 
Hence, he contended, " we have as many and as clear ideas 
belonging to spirit as we have belonging to body, the substance 
of each being equally unknown to us ; and the idea of thinking 
in spirit, as clear as of extension in body ; and the communication 
of motion by thought, which we attribute to spirit, is as evident 
as that impulse which we ascribe to body. Constant experience 
makes us sensible of both of these, though our narrow under- 
standings can comprehend neither." ^ 

Locke, then, held a distinctly dualistic view of human person- 
ality, though he held it, not dogmatically, but only as the most 
reasonable and probable view ; for the temper of his mind was 
scientific rather than metaphysical. He was prepared to admit 
that God may have endowed material substance with the power 
of thought ; for, said he, " It is not much more remote from our 
comprehension to conceive this than to conceive that God should 
superadd to matter another substance with a faculty of thinking ; 
since we know not in what thinking consists nor to what sort of 
substances the first eternal thinking Being has been pleased to 
giv§ that power." 

This passage shows that Locke was familiar with, and regarded 
as not altogether untenable, that kind of mechanical materialism, 
professed by his great countrymen, Newton, Boyle, and Priestly, 
which reconciled itself with religion by postulating God as the 
designer and creator of the great machine ; and his adherence to 
^ Essay, Bk. II. chap, xxiii. ^ Loc. cit. ^ hoc. cit. 



64 BODY AND MIND 

the dualistic view seems to have been determined by the fact that, 
it was more in harmony with the rehgious teachings which claimed 
to be founded upon divine revelation. 

The more fervid temperament and stronger theological bias. 
of Bishop Berkeley would not allow him to rest content with 
Locke's calm, balanced, and strictly scientific attitude towards 
the pt^gblem of spirit and matter, or to follow him in accepting 
the dualistic answer to the problem as the most probable of the 
rival possibilities. He was a metaphysician by nature and sought 
for absolute truth. Since, then, it had been made clear by Locke 
that matter is but an obscure and hypothetical conception based 
only on inference from the facts of sensation ; and since Berkeley 
was convinced of the absolute reality of Spirit, on grounds which 
he never thought of questioning ; he hastened to deny the reality 
of matter, in order to stem the dangerous flood of Materialism, 
which seemed to him to threaten all true religion. Locke had 
ascribed our sensations to the influence of material things, 
operating indirectly upon our souls through the medium of the 
sense organs. Berkeley insisted that, if we believe in the 
omnipotence of God, the assumption of material things as the 
causes of our sensations is an unnecessary hypothesis ; for we 
must believe that God can evoke our sensations by the direct 
action of his Spirit upon ours. 

Berkeley sets out by agreeing with Locke that all the objects 
of human knowledge are " ideas " — " either ideas actuall}^ im- 
printed on the senses ; or else such as are perceived by attending 
to the passions and operations of the mind ; or lastly, ideas 
formed by help of memory and imagination." ^ " But," he goes 
on, " besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of 
knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives 
them ; and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, 
remembering, about them. This perceiving, active being is what 
I call Mind, Spirit, Soul, or Myself By which words I do not 
denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from 
them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby 
they are perceived — for the existence of an idea consists in being 
perceived." ^ 

As regards the alleged independent existence of material 
things, he writes — " It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing 
1 " Of the Principles of Human Knowledge," § i. 2 Qp^ ^^V.,' § 2. 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 65 

amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all 
sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from 
their being perceived by the understanding. But, with how 
great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may 
be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart 
to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve 
a manifest contradiction. For, what are the forementioned 
objects but the things we perceive by sense ? and what do we 
perceive besides our own ideas or sensations ? and is it not 
plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of 
them, should exist unperceived ? " ^ 

And again he writes : " Some truths there are so near and 
obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see 
them. Such I take this important one to be, viz., that all the choir 
of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies 
which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any 
subsistence without a mind — that their being is to be perceived or 
known ; that, consequently, so long as they are not actually 
perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any 
other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or 
else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit — it being 
perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstrac- 
tion, to attribute to any single part of them an existence 
independent of a spirit. To be convinced of which the reader 
need only reflect, and try to separate in his own thoughts the 
being of a sensible thing from its being perceived. From what 
has been said it is evident there is not any other Substance than 
Spirit, or that which perceives." ^ 

As regards the existence of spirit, after denying" all power or 
agency to ideas, he writes : " We perceive a continual succession 
of ideas; some are anew excited, others are changed or totally 
disappear. There is, therefore, some Cause of these ideas, whereon 
they depend, and which produces and changes them. That this 
cause cannot be any quality, or idea, or combination of ideas 
is clear from the preceding section. It must, therefore, be a 
substance ; but it has been shown that there is no corporeal 
or material substance : it remains, therefore, that the cause of 
ideas is an incorporeal active substance or Spirit." " A Spirit 
is one simple, undivided, active being — as it perceives ideas it 
is called the Understanding, and as it produces or otherwise 
1 Op. cit., § 4. 2 Qp_ ^jY., §§ 6 and 7. 

5 



66 BODY AND MIND 

operates about them it is called the Will . . . Such is the 
nature of Spirit, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself 
perceived, but only by the effects which it produceth." ^ Then, 
after remarking that " I find I can excite ideas in my mind 
at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as often as I think 
fit," he goes on, " But, whatever power I may have .over 
my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense 
have not a like dependence on my will. When in broad day- 
light I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether 
I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall 
present themselves to my view ; and so likewise as to the 
hearing and other senses, the ideas imprinted on them are 
not creatures of my will. There is, therefore, some ot/ier Will 
or Spirit that produces them." ^ 

Berkeley, then, regardless of the statement with which his 
inquiry opens, namely, the statement that all the objects of 
human knowledge are " ideas," goes on to tell us that " from 
the Principles we have laid down, it follows Human Knowledge 
may naturally be reduced to two heads — that of zeleas and that 
of Spirits." 3 " Th'uo^ or Bezno^ is the most general name of all : 
it comprehends under it two kinds entirely distinct and hetero- 
geneous, and which have nothing common but the name, viz., 
Spirits and Ideas. The former are active, indivisible, incor- 
ruptible substances : the latter are inert, fleeting, or dependent 
beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, 
or exist in minds or spiritual substances." ^ 

Other passages that throw light on Berkeley's conception 
of the soul are the following : " It is a plain consequence that 
the soul always thinks ; and in truth, whoever shall go about to 
divide in his thoughts, or abstract the existence of a spirit from 
its cogitation, will, I believe, find it no easy task." ^ " By the 
word spirit we mean only that which thinks^ wills, and per- 
ceives ; this, and this alone, constitutes the signification of that 

term." ^ 

" The knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate, 
as is the knowledge of my ideas ; but depending on the inter- 
vention of ideas, by me referred to agents or spirits distinct 
from myself, as effects or concomitant signs." ^ 

1 Op. cit., §§ 26 and 27. ^ op. cit., § 29. ^ Qp. cit., § 86. 

* Op. cii., § 89. ^ Op. cit., § 98. 

« Op. cit., § 138. ' Op. cit., § 145. 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 67 

" Nothing can be plainer than that the motions, changes, 
decays, and dissolutions which we hourly see befall natural 
bodies (and which is what we mean by the course of nature) 
cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance ; 
such a being, therefore, is indissoluble by the force of nature ; 
that is to say — the soul of man is naturally immortal." ^ 

Locke, then, had shown clearly enough that our conceptions 
of matter and spirit, of body and soul, are obscure and uncertain, 
and that they are arrived at only indirectly by reflection upon 
the facts of immediate experience : but he accepted them as 
being useful and reasonably probable : Berkeley, carried away by 
his desire to confound the materialists, rejected altogether the 
" unknown somewhat " that we call matter, while retaining the 
equally unknown somewhat that we call spirit ; thus he let loose 
the modern flood of subjectivism and scepticism, and led to the 
adoption of the critical attitude in philosophy. For Hume, 
approaching the same problems without Berkeley's theological 
bias, but in a similar metaphysical spirit, forcibly argued, as 
Locke had done, that our conception of spirit is in no better case 
than that of matter, and that, if, with Berkeley, we reject the 
conception of matter, we must also reject the conception of spirit. 

The essential novelty of Hume's reasoning was his rejection 
of the validity of the notion of causation. Both Locke and 
Berkeley had accepted and used the principle of causation without 
serious question ; noting that our sensations rise to consciousness 
independently of our volition, they regarded them as the effects 
of some causes lying outside or beyond the mind, and confidently 
inferred the reality of the causes from these effects revealed in 
our immediate experience — Locke conceiving them as the actions 
of matter on mind, Berkeley as the direct actions of God. But 
Hume asked : What is our warrant for thus accepting the 
principle of causation, and for inferring the existence of causes, 
whether material or spiritual, of our sensations ? And to this 
question he could find no good answer. " It is only causation',' 
says Hume, " which produces such a connection as to give us 
assurance from the existence or action of one object, that it was 
followed or preceded by any other existence or action." '^ " It 
appears that of those three relations which depend not upon the 
mere ideas (namely identity, the situation in time and place, and 

1 Op. cit., § 41. ^" A Treatise of Human Nature," Part III. § 2. 



68 BODY AND MIND 

causation) the only one that can be traced beyond our senses, 
and informs us of existences and objects, which we do not see or 
feel, is causation." ^ He then goes on to say that our idea of the 
relation of causation obtaining between events is derived from 
the observation of their contiguity in space and their immediate 
succession in time. But, says he, " Shall we then rest contented 
with these two relations of contiguity and succession, as affording 
a complete idea of causation ? By no means, an object may be 
contiguous and prior to another, without being considered as its 
cause. There is a necessary connection to be taken into considera- 
tion." ^ Hume then investigates through the course of several 
chapters " the nature of that necessaiy connection which enters 
into our idea of cause and effect." And the outcome of his 
research is summarized as follows : — 

" The idea of necessity arises from some impression. There 
is no impression conveyed by our senses, which can give rise to 
that idea. It must, therefore, be derived from some internal 
impression or impression of reflection. There is no internal 
impression, which has any relation to the present business, but 
that propensity which custom produces, to pass from an object 
to an idea of its usual attendant. This, therefore, is the essence 
of neceesity. Upon the who's, necessity is something that exists 
in mind, not in objects, nor is it possible for us ever to form the 
most distant idea of.it, considered as a quality in bodies. Either 
we have no idea of necessity or necessity is nothing but that 
determination of the mind to pass from causes to effects, and 
from effects to causes, according to their experienced union," ^ 
For, " When any object is presented to us, it immediately conveys 
to the mind a lively idea of that object which is usually found 
to attend it ; and this determination of the mind forms the 
necessary connection of these objects. But vt^hen we change the 
point of view from the objects to the perceptions, in that case the 
impression is to be considered as the cause, and the lively idea 
as the effect ; and their necessary connection is that new 
determination, which we feel to pass from the idea of the one 
to that of the other." * Hence he concludes " A cause is an 
object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with 
it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the 
idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more 
lively idea of the other." ^ 

^ Loc. cit. ^ Loc. cit. * Op. cii., chap. xiv. * Loc, cit. ^ hoc. cit. 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 69 

Hume, having thus proved to his own complete satisfaction 
that the conception of causal relation is purely subjective, that 
it stands for no real action or influence exerted by one thing 
on another, has (for those who accept his reasoning) undermined 
both the reasoning by which Locke justified our conception of 
matter as the cause of our sensations, and that by which Berkeley 
sought to prove our sensations to be directly caused by the will 
of God. 

Hume had already dismissed to the class of baseless fictions 
the conception of a thing, or substance, or enduring being, with 
the dictum that " the idea of a substance is nothing but a 
collection of simple ideas that are united by the imagination and 
have a particular name assigned them," and that " we have no 
idea of substance, distinct from that of a collection of particular 
qualities, nor have we any other meaning when we either talk 
or reason concerning it." ^ But his reasoning about causation 
(if it be sound) invalidates even more effectively the conception 
of thing or substance ; for a thing is essentially that which exerts 
power or action upon another. 

Hume undertook to refute also the special arguments by 
which Berkeley had sought to establish the reality of God and 
of the human soul as real beings, things, or substances. 

Berkeley had made merry over those philosophers who 
spoke of the substance of matter as the support or substratum 
of its accidents or sensible qualities. " If we inquire into 
what the most accurate philosophers declare themselves to 
mean by material substance, we shall find them acknowledge 
theyl have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but 
the idea of being in general, together with the relative notion of 
its supporting accidents. The general idea of Being appeareth 
to me the most abstract and incomprehensible of all other ; 
and as for its supporting accidents, this, as we have just 
now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of 
those words ; it must, therefore, be taken in some other sense, 
but what that is they do not explain. So that when I consider 
the two parts or branches which make the signification of the 
words material substance, I am convinced there is no distinct 
meaning annexed to them." ^ Yet, when in the course of 
the same essay Berkeley came to treat of souls, he naively 
described them as spiritual substances by which ideas are 
^ Op. cit., Part I. § 7. ^ "Principles of Human Knowledge," § 16. 



^o BODY AND MIND 

supported and in which ideas exist as " inert, fleeting, or 
dependent beings " ; without in any way rendering more clear 
the meaning to be attached to the sounds " substance " and 
" supporting," 

Hume, regarding the problem in complete freedom from 
Berkeley's theological bias, metes out to spiritual substance 
the same treatment that Berkeley gave to material substance. 
Referring to " the curious reasoners concerning the material 
or immaterial substances in which they suppose our perceptions 
to inhere," he saj^s : "In order to put a stop to these endless 
cavils on both sides, I know no better method than to ask these 
philosophers in a few words, what they mean by substance and 
inhesion ? This question we have found impossible to be 
answered with regard to matter and body ; but besides that 
in the case of the mind it labours under all the same difficulties, 
it is burdened with some additional ones, which are peculiar 
to that subject." And after displaying these, he concludes : 
" Thus neither by considering the first origin of ideas, nor by 
means of a definition, are we able to arrive at any satisfactory 
notion of substance, which seems to me a sufficient reason 
for abandoning utterly that dispute concerning the materiality 
and immateriality of the soul, and makes me absolutely condemn 
even the question itself. We have no perfect idea of anything 
but of a perception.- A substance is entirely different from a 
perception. We have therefore no idea of a substance. Inhesion 
in something is supposed to be requisite to support the existence 
of our perception. Nothing appears requisite to support the 
existence of a perception. We have therefore no idea of inhesion. 
What possibility then of answering that question. Whether percep- 
tions inhere in a material or immaterial substance, when we do not 
so much as understand the meaning of the question ? " ^ 

Berkeley, having opened his essay with the emphatic assertion 
that all the objects of human knowledge are ideas and ideas 
only ; having shown that (in accordance with his general 
principles of knowledge) " it is evident there can be no idea of a 
spirit " ; and having said " that this substance (spirit) which 
supports or perceives ideas should itself be an idea or like an 
idea is evidently absurd " ; may justly be held to have anticipated 
Hume's denial of spirit ; or at least to have shown that, 
according to his own principles, we can have no knowledge of 
1 " Treatise of Human Nature," Book I. Part III. § 5. 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 71 

spirit. But, regardless of logic, he went on to say somewhat 
lamely that " In a large sense indeed, we may be said to have 
an idea or rather a notion of spirit." ^ And in another work he 
attempted to defend this " notion," this " sort of an idea," so 
manifestly inconsistent with his own statements and principles, by 
saying : " / know or am conscioics of my own being, and that / 
myself 2sa not my ideas. But / am not in like manner conscious 
of the existence or essence of Matter. On the contrary, I know 
that nothing inconsistent can exist, and that the existence of 
this abstract matter implies inconsistency. There is, therefore, 
no parity of case between Spirit and Matter." ^ 

Berkeley's defence of soul or spirit against his own fundamental 
principles being so halting and wanting in logic, it was no great 
step for Hume to refute it and so to bring back the discussion 
to the position in which it had been left by Locke. But in doing 
so he gave the agnostic conclusion as to the existence of both 
spiritual and material substances, a more positively sceptical or 
negative flavour ; and indeed he showed an inclination towards the 
materialistic view, rather than towards Berkeley's pure spiritualism 
or Locke's attitude of impartial agnosticism towards both spirit 
and matter. In reference to such affirmations of our immediate 
awareness of the self as Berkeley had made, he wrote : " Un- 
luckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very 
experience which is pleaded for them ; nor have we any idea of 
self, after the manner it is here explained. For, from what 
impression could this idea be derived ? This question it is 
impossible to answer without a manifest contradiction and 
absurdity ; and yet it is a question which must necessarily be 
answered if we would have the idea of self pass for clear and 
intelligible. It must be some one impression that gives rise to 
every real idea. But self or person is not any one impression, 
but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed ^ 
to have a reference. If any impression gives rise to the idea of 
self, that impression must continue invariably the same, through 
the whole course of our lives ; since self is supposed to exist 
after that manner. But there is no impression constant and 
invariable. Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and 
sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same 
time. It cannot, therefore, be from any of these impressions, or 

^ Op. cit., § 140. 

^ Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous. 



72 BODY AND MIND 

from any other, that the idea of self is derived ; and consequently 
there is no such idea." 

" But further, what must become of all our particular per- 
ceptions upon this hypothesis ? All these are different, and 
distinguishable, and separable from each other, and may be 
separately considered, and may exist separately, and have no 
need of anything to support their existence. After what manner, 
therefore, do they belong to self, and how are they connected 
with it ? For my part, when I enter most intimately into what 
I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or 
other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or 
pleasure. 1 never can catch myself at any time without a 
perception ; and never can observe anything but the perception. 
When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound 
sleep, so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not 
to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and 
could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate, after 
the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor 
do I conceive what is further requisite to make me a perfect 
nonentity. If anyone upon serious and unprejudiced reflection, 
thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can 
reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he 
may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially 
different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something 
simple and continued, which he calls himself, though I am certain 
there is no such principle in me." 

" But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may 
venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but 
a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each 
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux 
and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without 
varying our perceptions. Our thought is still more variable 
than our sight ; and all our other senses and faculties contribute 
to this change ; nor is there any single power of the soul which 
remains unalterably the same perhaps for one moment. The mind 
is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make 
their appearance ; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an 
infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no 
simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different, whatever 
natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and 
identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY j'^, 

They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the 
mind, nor have we the most distant notion of the place where 
these scenes are represented, or of the materials of which it is 
composed." ^ 

x^nd, summing up on this question, Hume wrote : " To 
pronounce, then, the final decision upon the whole, the question 
concerning the substance of the soul is absolutely unintelligible ; 
all our perceptions are not susceptible of a local union, either 
with what is extended or unextended ; there being some of them 
of the one kind, and some of the other. And as the constant 
conjunction of objects constitutes the very essence of cause and 
effect, matter and motion miay often be regarded as the causes of 
thought, as far as we have any notion of that relation." '- 

While Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in this country were 
preparing the way for the critical attitude that has been the 
presupposition of all subsequent philosophizing, continental 
thought was pursuing a different course. In spite of the 
attempt of Spinoza to find a new solution of the psycho-physical 
problem, the bulk of cultivated opinion remained divided between 
the two doctrines that had come down from antiquity ; men were, 
in general, either dogmatic spiritualists or dogmatic materialists. 

^ In the earlier part of the eighteenth century the academic 
philosophers were, in the main, divided into two parties, the 
followers of Descartes and of Leibnitz respectively. The former, 
accepting the extreme Dualism of Descartes' metaphysic, had 
developed it in two divergent directions ; on the one hand, those 
of strongly religious tendency developed it in the direction of 
mysticism, and succeeded in rendering it congenial to the Church 
in a degree which rendered it for a time the successor of 
Scholasticism ; on the other hand, others laid more stress on the 
strictly mechanical view of nature, and on the sceptical attitude 
which Descartes had assumed at the outset of his investiga- 
tions. By these divergent stresses Cartesianism was dismem- 
bered ; and throughout the greater part of the eighteenth century 
it was overshadowed by the Leibnitzian philosophy. In the early 
part of the century this was made by Christian Wolff the basis 
of his rationalistic dogmatic system, which dominated most of the 
continental academies of learning till towards the end of the 

1 Op. cit., Bk. I. Part IV. § 6, " Of Personal Identity." 

2 Op. cit., Bk. I. Part IV. § 5, " Of the Immateriality of the Soul." 



74 BODY AND MIND 

eighteenth century. In this system the immortality of the soul 
as a spiritual substance was established by some such reasoning 
as follows : The unity of self-consciousness implies the simplicity 
of the soul substance. Since the soul is simple or unitary it 
cannot be a compound or capable of division ; hence it cannot 
be extended, for all extended substance is divisible ; therefore it 
is a spiritual substance without extension ; and, since it cannot 
be divided, it is incapable of being destroyed, and is therefore 
immortal. 

On the other hand, the materialists, fascinated by the 
simplicity of the kinetic view of nature, and fortified by increase 
of biological knowledge (which showed that the animal body is 
the seat of many chemical and physical processes and that many 
of its processes may be mechanically interpreted), accepted with 
enthusiasm Descartes' dictum that all the processes of the animal 
body are mechanically explicable, and extended it without ex- 
ception to the human body ; thus leaving no place for the inter- 
vention of the soul. This materialistic tendency was a part of 
the movement of the cultivated classes in France (known as the 
Enlightenment), which was stimulated by the introdi!^ction of 
British thought by Voltaire and Montesquieu. The sensation- 
alism of Locke and Hume, eagerly taken up and carried to an 
extreme length by Voltaire and by Condillac in his " Traite des 
Sensations" (i754),-lent itself well to the materialistic interpreta- 
tion of nature and of man. Condillac adhered to Animism in 
spite of his reduction of all thought to sensation. But Voltaire 
fastened eagerly upon Locke's -assertion that God may have 
endowed matter with the power of thought ; and the Enlighten- 
ment culminated in the dogmatic and atheistic materialism of 
Baron D'Holbach's " Systeme de la Nature" (1770), which found 
a large following in the polite world. 

These acutely opposed dogmatisms were the dominant in- 
fluences in the intellectual circles of continental Europe when, in 
1 78 1, Kant launched upon the world his "Critique of Pure 
Reason." It fell like a bombshell among the disputants, shat- 
tered for ever the dogmatic metaphysics of both parties, and 
became the starting-point of a powerful new movement. 

^ Kant's attempt was, by combining the scepticism he had learnt 
from Hume with the idealism of Berkeley, to achieve a position 
which might claim to reconcile and to combine in a higher 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ys 

synthesis all that was most vital in the opposed dogmatisms. 
The great and rapid success of his doctrine was due to this fact. 
The arguments of the materialists had seemed incapable of refu- 
tation ; yet men would not consent to resign at their bidding the 
belief in God, freedom, and immortality, whose stronghold was 
the Wolffian metaphysic. And, when Kant came forward, offer- 
ing to show them how they might consistently accept the 
principal tenets of both parties — might reconcile the seemingly 
opposed teachings of science and of religion — they eagerly 
welcomed him. 

Kant held the balance true between Hume and Berkeley, by 
maintaining the validity of Berkeley's inference from our sense- 
perceptions to some agent or agencies that evoke our sensations ; 
while, with Hume, he denied that we can infer the nature of those 
agencies. As to the real nature of these agents, the famous 
things-in-themselves, he held that we know and can know nothing ; 
that we are not warranted in believing them to be either matter 
or thinking beings ; but that it is unnecessary to assume them to 
be of more than one kind. 

By his doctrine of the subjectivity of Space and Time and 
of the purely phenomenal character of all the sensible world, he 
robbed Materialism of its offensive power, while maintaining the 
validity of mechanical explanation of all phenomenal processes ; 
and, by his doctrine of the practical reason, he claimed to establish 
on the sure foundation of the moral nature of man the belief in 
God, freedom, and immortality. Man's body belongs, according 
to Kant, like all other bodies, wholly to the phenomenal world, and 
has only empirical reality ; this iiiundus sensibilis is known through 
the understanding, or theoretical reason ; but the soul belongs to 
the immdus intelligibilis, or ideal world, which is known through 
the practical reason. 

Kant taught that the soul has three great faculties — (i) 
sentiency, which man has in common with the animals ; 
(2) understanding or theoretical reason ; and (3) pure reason, 
which in a very partial and imperfect manner man has in com- 
mon with God, who is pure reason ; the two latter constitute 
the true Ego. Paulsen summarizes as follows Kant's meta- 
physical doctrine of the soul ^: — "The logical nature, understanding 
and reason, is really the Ego in itself, while on the other hand, 
tkne and space belong merely to sentiency, to the sense repre- 
1 " Immanuel Kant, his Life and Doctrine," p. 185. 



76 BODY AND MIND 

sentation of the Ego which as phenomenal can pass away at 
death. But there remains the Ego as a pure, thinking essence, 
free from space and time, a spaceless and timeless, pure, thinking 
spirit. This is a thought which, although not realizable in 
perception, remains nevertheless a true and necessary idea." 

Though Kant claimed that his Critique showed how the pro- 
blem of the relation of soul to body is to be overcome (namely by 
reducing the body to the level of merely empirical or phenom_enal 
reality, while assigning the soul to a sphere of higher reality) ; he 
did not ^attempt to show in detail how this solution is to be 
worked out. But he threw out a suggestion, which has been 
elaborated by later thinkers. His epistemological system neces- 
sarily reduced the facts of the world of consciousness, all that we 
discover by introspection, to the level of phenomena, if only 
because our states of consciousness succeed one another in time ; 
they are phenomena perceived by an " inner sense." Thus, 
mental processes and the bodily processes that accompany them 
are alike phenomena ; and there is a parallelism between psychi- 
cal and physical phenomena, in the sense that the same thing 
which arises in my consciousness, or appears to the inner sense 
as sensation, idea, or feeling, would manifest itself to the per- 
ception of the external sense as a physical process in ,my body.-"- 

This is a variation of the psycho-physical doctrine of pheno- 
tnenalistic parallelism which was first enunciated by Spinoza ; 
we shall have to examine it in a later chapter. It was 
merely thrown out by Kant as a suggestion. That he did 

^ This suggestion is embodied in the following passage: "If matter were a 
thing by itself, it would, as a composite being be totally different from the soul, 
a simple being. But what we call matter is an external phenomenon only, 
the substratum of which cannot possibly be known by any possible predicates. 
I can therefore very well suppose that that substratum is simple, although in the 
manner in which it aiiects our senses it produces in us the intuition of something 
■extended, and therefore composite, so that the substance which, with reference 
to our external sense, possesses extension, might very well by itself possess 
thoughts which can be represented consciously by its own internal sense. In 
such wise the same thing which in one respect is called corporeal, would in another 
respect be at the same time a thinking being, of which, though we cannot see 
its thoughts, we can yet see the signs of them phenomenally. Thus the ex- 
pression that souls only (as a particular class of substances) think, would have 
to be dropt, and we should return to the common, expression that men think, 
that is, that the same thing which, as an external phenomenon is extended, is 
internally, by itself, a subject, not composite, but simple and intelligent " 
(" Critique of pure Reason." Criticism of second paralogism of transcendental 
psychology. Max Miiller's translation). 



ANIMISM IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 77 

not mean to adopt it, is shown by the opening words of the 
paragraph following the one which contains the suggestion 
(" But without indulging in such hypotheses . , .") and by an 
explicit statement in the next section of the Critique, which 
runs as follows : " The transcendental object, which forms the 
foundation of external phenomena, and the other, which forms the 
foundation of our internal intuition, is therefore neither matter 
nor a thinking being by itself, but simply an unknown cause of 
the phenomena that supplied to us the empirical concept of 
both." 1 

In the eighteenth century the division and specialization of 
intellectual labour, which had resulted from the revival of learning, 
had gone so far that it was no longer possible for any one man 
to attempt to master the whole field of science and philosophy,, 
after the manner of Descartes and other great thinkers of the 
preceding century. Biology had become a relatively independent 
science, and was pursued for its own sake by a rapidly increasing 
number of workers. 

Throughout this century the Animism which had been handed 
down from Aristotle continued to be the dominant way of thought 
of biologists, in spite of the large influence of Descartes' mechanical 
physiology* and the popularity of the Materialism exemplified in 
" La Systeme de la Nature." The most influential exponents of 
the vitalistic physiology were G. E. Stahl and C. F. Wolff. The 
former (1660- 17 34), rejecting the distinction of vegetative, sensi- 
tive, and rational souls, to which in the hands of Aristotle's 
followers the master's recognition of the corresponding functions 
had led, ascribed all vital manifestations, especially growth and 
movement, to the rational soul {aniiiia rationalis). C. F. Wolff 
departed further from the Aristotelian tradition, and may be 
regarded as the father of the later vitalism, which, while denying 
that the body is a machine merely, confined its attention to the 
vegetative functions, and sought to account for their peculiarities 
by means of the conception of some non-mechanical principle. 
Wolff named this principle the vis essentalis, and later writers, 
more especially the critics of vitalism, have generally denoted it 
by the term vital force {Lebens-kraft). Wolff propounded in his 
chief treatise," Theoria Generationis" (1759), a vitalistic doctrine of 
development by epigenesis, in opposition to the generally accepted 
^ Op. cit., " Criticism of Fourth Paralogism of Transcendental Psychology." 



78 MIND AND BODY 

doctrine of evolution, according to which the development of an 
organism is merely the growth in size of a minute organism con- 
tained within the germ and having all the essential parts and 
■organs already present within it. It has been usual to employ 
the word Vitalism to distinguish physiological doctrines of this 
type from mechanistic physiology on the one hand and from 
Animism on the other ; but it is clear that Vitalism (understood 
in this way) cannot be sharply distinguished from Animism, and 
that it is but a form of Animism characterized by neglect of the 
psycho-physical problem. 



CHAPTER VI 
ANIMISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

THE most striking and immediate result of the success of 
Kant's critical philosophy was the rapid rise ^ of the 
romantic speculation that dominated Germany during 
the first third of the nineteenth century and culminated in the 
system of Hegel. During this period, the psycho-physical 
problem was almost lost sight of, submerged in the flood of 
idealistic enthusiasm which, accepting the world of ideas as. the 
only real world, hardly deigned to take account of the facts 
and theories of empirical science. Kant had laid it down that 
Materialismi, though it is utterly impossible as a metaphysical 
doctrine, is necessarily presupposed by the natural sciences ; for 
it is, he affirmed, an indispensable presupposition of these sciences 
that everything that is real manifests itself in space as a body 
or a function of a body. But reflection on the nature of our 
knowledge and our cognitive faculties shows that bodies are mere 
appearance, that they are real only for a perceiving and think- 
ing subject. Therefore it is impossible that the subject and its 
activities should be interpreted as a function of a body. The 
thinking Ego or subject is the presupposition of the possibility 
of the corporeah world, which is a product of its activity. 
This was the keynote of the subsequent Idealismx : Kant's 
thing-in-itself was rejected, and the body was regarded as but 
the creation of the mind ; from which it followed that it is absurd 
to suppose that the mind can be in any degree dependent upon 
the body. For Idealism of this type the body was reduced to 
the level of unreality ; and it carried the psycho-physical problem 
with it to that level. 

But, after thirty years of dominance of the Speculative 
Philosophy, there came a sudden and violent reaction against it ; 
purely logical construction fell into disrepute ; men of science 
had learnt to regard philosophy as the secret ally of reactionary 
theology and an enemy to true science ;' and, mistrusting its 



8o BODY AND MIND 

methods and results, they went back to the work of faithful 
observation and minute experiment.^ Thus Kant's successors, 
by insisting unduly on one part of his doctrine, prepared the 
way for the renewed outburst of Materialism of the middle of 
the nineteenth century ; and this in turn brought to the front once 
more the problem of the relation between soul and body, which 
Kant had placed in a new light, but without either solving or 
removing it. It was during this period of revived Materialism 
that further elaboration of Kant's psycho-physical suggestion was 
undertaken by a philosopher who was, by training and profession, 
a physicist rather than a psychologist or metaphysician, namely, 
G. T. Fechner. 

The modern phase of the psycho-physical discussion may be 
said to begin with the publication in i860 of Fechner's principal 
treatise, the " Elemente der Psycho-physik." In this and other 
works, Fechner elaborated a panpsychic and pantheistic world- 
view, basing it upon a psycho-physical theory which dispenses 
with the soul and regards all processes of the universe as both 
physical and psychical. This theory claims, like Kant's doctrine, 
to enable us to reap the advantages of both Materialism and 
Spiritualism, to be materialists in science and idealists in 
philosophy ; and it avoids that feature of Kant's doctrine which 
has been felt by so many of its critics to be wholly unacceptable, 
namely, the unknowable thing-in-itself It has become, perhaps, 
the most widely accepted of the various allied doctrines that 
are commonly classed together as theories of psycho-physical 
parallelism. These will be stated in Chapter XI. ; here it need 
only be said that their common claim to escape the reproach 
of Materialism, while accepting whole-heartedly the strictly 
mechanistic view of the world, has recommended them through- 
out the second half of the century to a constantly increasing 
number of philosophers and men of science. 

Animism continued to find during the nineteenth century a 
certain number of respectable supporters besides the philosophers of 
the Roman Church ; the latter have continued to teach a rational psy- 
chology which descends directly from Thomas Aquinas, and which 
implies a dualistic metaphysic of the kind formulated by Descartes. 

^ So violent was this reaction against the N atur-pMlosophie that in the 
opinion of Dr Th. Merz (" History of European Thought ") it was responsible 
for the comparative neglect of the first expositions of the principle of the con- 
servation of energy by Mayer and Von Helmholtz respectively. 



ANIMISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 8i 

Until nearly the middle of the century, Vitalism continued to 
flourish and found many defenders among the leading representa- 
tives of the several biological sciences. While most of the 
vitalists of this period were content to postulate a " vital force," 
others, like Blumenbach and Treviranus, attempted to give a more 
positive content to that vague notion ; while a few, like Johannes 
Miiller and R. Wagner, held fast to the conception of the soul.^ 
Even in the third quarter of the century the latter notion was 
still maintained by a few physiologists of eminence, such as Pflijger 
and Goltz ; but the efforts of these defenders were generall}^ re- 
garded at this time as merely prolonging the death throes of an 
exploded superstition. 

Of those few German philosophers who opposed the romantic 
school during its period of dominance and yet managed to obtain 
a hearing and exert a permanent influence, the most important 
was J. F. Herbart. His philosophy claimed to be a development 
of the Kantian teachings, but it was more definitely realistic ; 
like Kant, he taught that our ideas point beyond themselves, that 
we are able to infer the existence of a world of real being behind 
the veil of phenomena ; but, not content with the mere affirmation 
of the existence of that world, he held that it consists of a plurality 
of real beings, or " Reals," each of which eternally persists, unchang- 
ing and unchanged. The soul of each man is such a " Real," 
and the play of ideas is the expression of the efforts of this 
" Real " to preserve its identity unchanged, in spite of the 
influences of other " Reals " upon it. But, though he professed to 
found his psychology on this metaphysical conception of an 
animating soul, Herbart's account of the course of mental life 
represents it as the strife and interplay of ideas or presentations, 
whose relation to the soul is never definitely conceived or cleared 
from inconsistencies. And, since the psychology of Herbaft, the 
part of his teaching of the most enduring influence, really operated 
with the presentations, treated these as the foundations of all 
psychical life, regarded psychical laws as laws of their operations, 
and found no place for the soul, many of the numerous psycho- 
logists who have accepted his psychological principles have found 
themselves able to do so, while neglecting or'^rejecting his meta- 
physical notion of the soul as a member of the world of " Reals." 
Thus, although Herbart's own teaching was animistic, it has contri- 
buted, only less powerfully than the association-psychology, to the 

^ See " Vitalismus, als Geschichte u. Lehre," by Hans Dreisch, Leipzig, 1902. 
6 



82 BODY AND MIND 

predominance of the " psychology without a soul " which charac- 
terizes the later part of the nineteenth century. 

Another independent and original psychologist of this period, 
F. E. Beneke, continued to hold the conception of the soul as the 
ground of mental life ; but he too contributed to bring about the 
predominance of the " psychology without a soul," by affirming 
the validity of purely physiological and anatomical explanations 
of mental disorders, and by his sympathetic presentment of 
Spinoza's doctrine of the relation of mind to matter. 

In the middle of the century. Animism found its most 
brilliant and thoroughgoing modern defender in R. H. Lotze. 
Trained in the medical sciences, and a master of the physiology 
of his time, one of his first efforts was an attack on Vitalism. 
He exhibited the futility of the formless notion of the vital force, 
and, conceiving the mechanical principles in a very broad spirit, 
he attempted to show the adequacy of those principles to the 
explanation of all the facts of biology. But in his chief works ^ he 
defended in the most thorough and searching manner the notion of 
psycho-physical interaction and the conception of the soul as a being 
distinct from the body. His metaphysic was a realistic but 
spiritualistic monism ; for he regarded the physical world as the 
appearance to us of a system of psychic existents of like nature 
with the soul of man, but of many grades of development. Never- 
theless he maintained that "no general scruples must therefore hinder 
us from accepting for the two great distinct groups of physical and 
of psychical phenomena grounds of explanation equally distinct and 
independent." ^ He maintained also that " anywhere and in any 
form, however surbordinate (i.e. animal forms), we may see elements 
of mental life, intervening between the operation of the corporeal 
organs, and filling gaps between the single links of the chain of 
vital processes." ^ 

It is, I think, impossible to reconcile the views expressed in these 
and many similar passages with Lotze's thoroughgoing rejection 
of Vitalism and his defence of the mechanical view of nature ; for, 
although his conception of mechanism was so wide that he felt 
justified in speaking of the mechanical course of all mental pro- 
cesses, he excepted those in which he recognized the operation of 
explicit volition, and defended the notion of free-will, looking upon 
the frte act as a new beginning in the universe ; and Lotze attributed 

1 " Medizinische Psychologie," " Microcosmus," and " Metaphysik." 

2 " Mikrokosmus," I. p. 149 (Eng. trans.). ^ Op. cit., p. 135. 



ANIMISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY S3 

all mental retention to the soul alone, which was thus conceived, 
not as an unchanging " real " or a mere atom of soul-substance, 
but as the bearer of all that essentially constitutes personality. But 
his early opposition to the current Vitalism prevented him attribut- 
ing to the soul any other than purely mental and fully conscious 
functions ; and, not having grasped the full implications of the 
Darwinian principles, he made no attempt to reconcile his 
animJstic doctrine with evolutionary biology. The argument to 
which he repeatedly turned for proof of the distinctness of the 
soul from the body was drawn from the unity of consciousness. 
But more must be said of this reasoning in a later chapter. 

In spite of the high position accorded to Lotze, later German 
thought has in the main turned scornfully away from Animism ; 
and, though the psycho-physical problem has been discussed in a 
multitude of books and articles, most of these discussions have 
aimed at rendering clearer and more intelligible the notion of 
psycho-physical Parallelism, very few, however^ attempting to show 
that the principle of Parallelism can be carried through in detail. 
On the other hand. Animism has continued to find some notable 
defenders in academic circles ; among them being Prof C. Stumpf,^ 
a friend and pupil of Lotze ; Prof O. Kiilpe, who briefly defends the 
dualistic metaphysic in his " Einleitung in der Philosophie " "^ ; and 
the late Prof L. Busse, whose book,^ published in 1903, is at once 
the most thorough examination of the psycho-physical question 
and a critical defence of Animism on the basis of a spiritualistic 
metaphysic. The close of the century has witnessed a revival of 
Vitalism among German biologists ; the common note of these 
Neo-Vitalists being the insistence that Darwinism fails to explain 
away the evidences of teleological determination presented by 
living organisms. 

In the early years of the century, French thought on psycho- 
logical problems was dominated by the teaching of Condillac 
and by that of the physiologist, Cabanis, who, though not strictly 
a materialist, gave precedence to physiological explanations of 
mental processes : a tendency exemplified by his famous dictum, 
the brain excretes thought as the liver excretes bile. 

^ " Leib u. Seele." The inaugural address to the International Congress of 
Psychologists at Munich, 1896. 

^ First Edition, Leipzic, 1895. 

* " Geist u. Korfer, Seele u. Leib " Leipzic, 1903. Other recent German psychol- 
ogists who have accepted psycho-physical dualism are Rehmke, Volkmann, 
Jerusalem, Pfander. 



84 BODY AND MIND 

Maine de Biran, whose psychological writings were perhaps 
the most important of this period, was much influenced by 
Condillac and Cabanis, but held fast to the conception of the 
soul as a being distinct from the body and having a destiny 
not limited by the life of the body. He found the surest evidence 
for this view in our consciousness of putting forth power or 
energy to effect changes in the world, and in man's capacity for 
aesthetic, religious, and mystical experience. 

But the influence of Comte and the positivist way of thought 
predominated in France throughout the century ; until at its 
close a new star of great brilliance appeared in the person 
of Prof. H. Bergson. His thought, as so far expressed, is 
very difficult to characterize on its positive or constructive side ; 
but he attacks the mechanistic view of nature by impugning the 
intellectual apparatus by means of which it has been built up. 
In his treatise on matter and memory ^ he distinguishes sharply 
between the habits rooted in the structure of the brain and true 
memory, a purely psychical mode of retention, and he regards 
traces of these two kinds, the material and the immaterial, as 
co-operating in the determination of the course of thought and 
action. And in his " Evolution Creatrice " he propounds a 
distinctly vitalistic doctrine of biological evolution. He must 
therefore be ranked among the defenders of Animism. 

In Great Britain the scepticism of Hume had provoked by a 
natural reaction the common-sense philosophy of Reid and his ■ 
followers, who accepted in the main the popular notion of the 
soul. Sir William Hamilton, whose influence in Scotland has 
been very great, attempted to combine the common sense of Reid 
with the critical phenomenalism of Kant. Consciousness, he 
maintained, is phenomenal only ; but it points to a reality behind 
it, of which it is the property : and this real being, the soul, 
cannot be identified with the reality that underlies material 
phenomena. But the dominant influence throughout the middle 
years of the century was that of the association-psychology of 
Locke, Hume, and Hartley, as elaborated by the two Mills, 
Bain, Spencer, and Shadworth-Hodgson. This tends naturally 
to be a " psychology without a soul," for which the fundamental 
realities are sensations that cluster and combine together accord- 
ing to the laws of association and of " mental chemistry." The 
Mills hardly attempted to deal with the psycho-physical problem^ 
^ " Matiere et Memoire," Paris. 



ANIMISM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 85 

though John Mill was troubled with some misgivings as to the 
associational doctrine that a series of states of consciousness can 
be aware of itself; but Spencer, Bain, and Shadworth-Hodgson 
definitely adopted the doctrine of psycho-physical Parallelism, 
the statement of which, in Spencer's " Principles of Psychology " 
(1855), is perhaps the earliest of the modern formulations. 

The British revival of the absolute Idealism of Hegel, which 
has been the dominant influence of the later part of the century, 
has tended to divert attention from the psycho-physical problem ; 
though a few of its prominent exponents have incidentally 
defended the animistic conception.^ Prof James Ward has 
maintained that ps3^chology cannot dispense with the notion of 
an Ego or Subject, and has argued forcibly against psycho- 
physical Parallelism in his " Naturalism and Agnosticism." - 
Dr F. C. S. Schiller has maintained a Berkeleyan Idealism,^ 
and the late F. W. H. Myers propounded a psycho-physical 
doctrine of a thoroughly animistic type.^ 

In America Prof G. T. Ladd has ably expounded and defended 
the ideas of Lotze ; and the late Prof William James, in his celebrated 
" Principles of Psychology," has defended the notion of psycho- 
physical interaction, and in later works has propounded a peculiar 
form of Animism, of which something will be said in a later 
chapter. 

In spite of these defenders. Animism was at a very low ebb in 
the last quarter of the century ; its few exponents were generally 
regarded as survivors from an earlier age, actuated by some 
theological bias to offer a futile opposition to the conquering 
march of science. 

Thoughout the nineteenth century, then. Animism has rapidly 
declined. Its claim to figure as the great opponent of Materialism 
has been successfully disputed by the parallelistic or monistic 
theories, which seek to combine the scientific advantages of 
Materialism with the philosophic respectability of Idealism. Of 
the three influences that have contributed to bring about this 
decline, namely, the critical philosophy of Kant, the absolute 
Idealism of the romantic school, and the astonishing and splendid 
development of the natural sciences, based in the main upon the 

1 Especially Mr F. H. Bradley and Prof. A. E. Taylor. (See " The Problem 
of Mind and Body in recent Psychology." Mind, N.S. No. 52.) 

2 Gifford Lectures, 1899. ^ " Riddles of the Sphinx," London 1892. 
*'' Human Personality and its Survival of the Death of the Body," London, 

1903. 



86 BODY AND MIND 

strictly mechanistic view of nature, the last has been the most 
far-reaching and decisive. From it the claim of mechanistic 
principles of explanation to universal and exclusive sway in the 
physical world has gained much greater strength than it derived 
from Kant's epistemology or from the natural science of his time ; 
and it is the strength of this claim that has well nigh banished 
Animism from the culture-tradition of the present age. We must 
therefore trace the growth of the strength of this claim and notice 
in some detail the bearing of modern scientic discoveries upon 
the psycho-physical problem. 



CHAPTER VII 

MODERN DEVELOPMENTS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE 
ADVERSE TO ANIMISM 

THE epistemological reflections of Locke, Berkeley, and 
Hume, culminating in the critical philosophy of Kant, 
not only completed the list of possible answers to the 
psycho-physical problem, but also introduced the modern scientific 
or critical attitude towards it. In spite of the presence of strong 
elements of old-fashioned dogmatism in the teaching of Kant, 
and to a less extent in that of Berkeley ; the enduring result 
of the discussions of these four thinkers was to make it clear 
that we can have no absolute and no immediate knowledge of 
either soul or body, and that the two conceptions can only be 
justified (or rejected) by showing that they are (or are not) neces- 
sary features of the system of conceptions which the human mind 
is slowly working out, for the purpose of rendering an intelligible 
and consistent explanation of the chaotic flux of individual ex- 
perience. Though it was necessary to accept this demonstration, 
it was not necessary, it was not possible, to accept the sceptical 
attitude towards all knowledge which Hume half-seriously advo- 
cated as the only respectable one. To have done so would have 
been profoundly irrational and in the last degree cowardly. If 
man is to live, he must act ; and, if he must act, he must govern 
his actions in accordance with conceptions of his own nature and 
of the world in which he is set, conceptions of whose validity he 
can have no absolute guarantee, and which he must choose 
develop, reshape, or reject, according as he finds them more or 
less efficient guides to successful action. And of all conceptions, 
the conceptions of the nature of, and of the relations between, 
mind and body are those which in the long run affect most pro- 
foundly, and are of the first importance for, this guidance of 
conduct ; for they must always exert a determining influence 
upon man's view of his place in the world, upon his prospects, his 
hopes, and his deepest purposes, and hence upon his conduct. 

87 



8S BODY AND MIND 

Although, then, Hume's scepticism has continued to secure 
the adhesion of certain temperaments, and is represented at the 
present day by a few vigorous thinkers,^ it has not gained any 
wide acceptance among peoples in whom the tide of life runs 
strongly. Its acceptance implies the Eastern doctrine that all is 
illusion ; it involves a thoroughgoing Solipsism, the doctrine that 
I, or my thoughts, alone exist ; for the consistent follower of Hume 
must admit that his principles involve the rejection, not only of 
the material world, but of all thought or mental life other than his 
own. i^nd among all the wide divergences of thought in our 
Western world, one principle has continued to secure a predominance 
never yet seriously shaken, namely, the principle, accepted whether 
explicitly or implicitly, whether as a reasoned conclusion or as a 
venture of faith, that each man lives, not by and for himself alone, 
but as a member of a community of beings of like nature with 
himself ; that our life is not a mere dream ; that our knowledge is 
not mere fantasy, but, however imperfect and inadequate, is yet 
real knowledge of a real world, and is capable of indefinitely 
great extension and improvement. 

Hume's absolute condemnation of all discussion of the 
materiality or immateriality of the soul was, then, of no effect in 
stemming the tide of discussion. The upshot of his work and that 
of his British predecessors was in the main to produce a change 
in the mode of approach to the problem. It was made clear that 
no solution of it can be achieved by reasoning a prion or from 
general principles alone ; but that rather we must work towards 
its solution by the aid of the methods of empirical science, by 
increasing the stock of well established facts and well grounded 
hypotheses. 

Accordingly, we find since the time of Hume an increasing 
tendency for the psycho-physical problem to be regarded as 
belonging to the province of science, rather than that of meta- 
physic. We have seen that Kant himself touches on the psycho- 
physical problem but lightly, and that what he wrote of the soul 
exhibits a curious mixture of dogmatic metaphysics with the 
critical procedure. Nevertheless, he too contributed to bring 
about the relegation of the problem from metaphysics to em- 
pirical science — on the one hand, by furthering that form of 

^ Notably by Prof. E. Mach of Vienna and by Prof. Karl Pearson, who agree 
with Hume in asserting that the known and knowable world consists of sensa- 
tions only. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE ADVERSE TO ANIMISM 89 

idealistic metaphysic which regards the body as neghgible, because 
unreal ; on the other hand, by making clear the impossibility of 
establishing the existence and nature of the soul by theoretical 
reasoning from general principles in the style of the Wolffian 
metaphysic. Accordingly, few of the metaphysicians since Kant 
have put the problem of the relation between soul and body in the 
foreground of their discussions, after the fashion of earlier ages ; 
they have, in fact, for the most part, left it on one side, or treated 
of it incidentally only and with uncertain tones, showing a dis- 
position to accept the opinions dominant in the scientific world ; 
and, if they have continued to speak of the soul of man, they 
have done so in a fashion which commits them to no definite 
answer to the psycho-physical problem. 

The history of the psycho-physical problem since the middle 
of the eighteenth century is, then, in the main the history of the . 
way in which the progress of the physical, the biological, and 
the psychological sciences has rendered ever more confident, 
and secured wider acceptance for, the belief in the universalit\- 
of the laws of mechanism revealed by the study of the realm of 
physical phenomena; a belief which necessarily involves the 
rejection of Animism. And this rejection of Animism has been 
rendered easier by the wide prevalence of the notion that Kant's 
phenomenalistic epistemology somehow renders it possible to hold 
to God, freedom, and immortality, in spite of it. 

In the following pages I propose to describe concisely the wa}^ 
in which the modern development of each of these branches 
of empirical science has contributed to bring about this result. 
The three lines of development of scientific knowledge and 
thought have acted and reacted upon one another in a way that 
has in the main favoured this result ; but they may be briefly 
outlined in succession. 

We have seen that, in the seventeenth century, Kepler, 
Galileo, Gassendi, and Hobbes had rehabilitated the atomic 
Materialism of the ancients. In the eighteenth century the 
genius of Newton, especially by the formulation of the funda- 
mental laws of motion and of the law of gravitation, gave an 
immense impetus to this way of thought. Newton himself 
and his leading disciples and successors. Priestly and Boyle, 
regarded the laws of mechanism as universally valid, and saved 
themselves from the charge of atheistic Materialism only by 



90 BODY AND MIND 

acknowledging matter and its laws to be the creations of the 
one Supreme Being. Laplace went further and, intoxicated 
by the intellectual splendour of the nebular hypothesis and by 
the wonderful powers of the mathematical instruments of which 
he was a master, denied in his famous reply to the great 
Napoleon the necessity of the hypothesis of a Creator ; and 
he it was who formulated clearly and explicitly the supreme 
faith of mechanical Materialism by asserting that, if the state 
of the material universe at any one moment of time could be 
com.pletely described, it would be possible in principle to arrive 
by calculation at the complete description of it at any other 
moment of its history. 

Laplace's confidence in the universality of the mechanical 
laws was founded in the belief that all physical processes are 
essentially the movements of particles of matter ; it was the 
apotheosis of atomic Materialism, developed by modern science 
into a scheme of universal kinetic mechanism. This scheme 
of kinetic mechanism has been of very great value as a working 
hypothesis for the guidance of physical research. It has proved 
so useful, is so attractive in its simplicity, is so well adapted to 
the powers of concrete representation or pictorial imagination 
which most men exercise with greater confidence and ease than 
any other of our intellectual faculties ; that it has obtained a very 
strong hold upon the scientific world. Throughout the nine- 
teenth century it continued to win fresh triumphs in various 
fields of physical research, notably in acoustics, optics, and the 
theory of gases, repeatedly proving itself the most fruitful of 
all physical hypotheses. It may be said to have reached its 
culmination in Lord Kelvin's theory of the vortex-atom, the 
most successful attempt yet made to describe the nature of 
matter and its relation to the ether ; and it has successfully 
withstood every attempt to supersede it, so that at the end of 
the century Dr Merz, judicially weighing its claims, affirms : 
" there is no doubt that the century ends with a very emphatic 
assertion of the rights and the legitimacy of the atomic and 
mechanical views of nature." ^ 

No wonder, then, that in the minds of very many men this 

scheme of kinetic mechanism has stood for a true and, in principle, 

an exhaustive description of the nature of the physical universe, 

and that it has played a very considerable part, especially in 

^ " History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century," vol. ii. p. 198. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE ADVERSE TO ANIMISM 91 

the minds of biologists, in determining the rejection of every 
form of Animism. It was argued that every physical event 
consists in the motion of particles, or the communication of 
motion from particle to particle ; such communication of motion 
by impact being held to be the only effective cause of acceleration 
or change of motion. All psychical influence upon the physical 
world was thus ruled out by the very definition of the physical 
world ; for in a world where all change is motion, and where all 
causation is of the nature of communication of motion by 
impact, there is no room for psychical influences. 

This conception has contributed to bring about the rejection 
of Animism in a second way also ; namely, it has served to 
strengthen the old argument of the occasionalists, that interaction 
between things so diverse as soul and body is inconceivable ; for,, 
when all physical process is definitely conceived as motion or 
acceleration of particles, the difficulty of conceiving how mind, 
can in any way modify this motion becomes correspondingly 
definite. The difficulty has been forcibly put by a contemporary 
writer who bids us try to imagine the thought of a beef-steak 
binding two molecules together ; while another brilliant author 
has illustrated the manifest absurdity of any belief in psychical 
influence upon the physical world, by likening it to the belief 
that the wagons of a railway train might be held together by 
the friendly feeling of the engine-driver for the guard. ^ 

But the nineteenth century has achieved a physical general- 
ization which has played an even greater part than the kinetic 
view of nature in expelling Animism from scientific thought. I 
mean of course the great generalization known as the law of 
conservation of energy. 

In spite of the seductiveness of the kinetic view of the 
physical world, in spite of the wealth of biological arguments 
skilfully arrayed in the " Systeme de la Nature," in spite of Kant's 
epistemological dictum. Animism continued to rear its head from 
time to time in the scientific world, like a snake scotched, but not 
quite killed. But the law of the conservation of energy has, in the 
opinion of many philosophers and men of science, given it its death- 
blow ; and in contemporary demonstrations of the impossibility of 
Animism, the argument from this law is generally given the place 
of honour, as the most weighty of all. 

1 Dr C. Mercier in " The Nervous System and the Mind " ; W. K. Clifford,. 
" Lectures and Essays." 



92 BODY AND MIND 

The law of the conservation of energy was enunciated almost 
at the same time by R. Mayer and Von Helmholtz in Germany 
and by Joule in England (in the year 1847) ; Mayer being led 
to it by reflection on biological facts, Helmholtz by physical 
and mathematical considerations, Joule by experiments which 
proved the exact equivalence of the energy converted into heat 
ciuring"^the performance of mechanical work. The law has 
received many different formulations ; but since its first enuncia- 
tion, it has been empirically verified by many experiments ; and 
the more refined the methods of experimental observation that 
have been applied, the more exact have been the demonstrations 
that the quantity of energy remains unchanged in every trans- 
formation of energy ; further, no exception to the law has been 
experimentally demonstrated. 

It is claimed, therefore, that these experimental observations 
justify us in generalizing the statement of the facts of observation, 
so that it runs — The transformation of energy involved in 
every physical process results in no change in the quantity of 
energy, the quantity of physical energy is exactly conserved in 
every case. From this statement it follows that the total sum 
of physical processes of the universe result in no change of the 
quantity of its physical energy. From this the further deduction 
is made that the sum total of the energy of the physical universe 
is a constant quantity, remaining without the least increase or 
diminution throughout all time. 

It has been widely held that this conclusion is confirmed by 
a metaphysical view which has found favour with many scientific 
authorities, the view namely that energy is a real thing or sub- 
stance, constituting, alone or in conjunction with matter, the 
substance of the physical universe.^ 

Now, the law of the conservation of energy, if accepted in 

this form, is held to be incompatible with the belief that psychical 

influences can modify in any way or degree the course of 

physical processes ; for any such influence, it is said, must either 

diminish or increase the quantity of physical energy of the 

universe and so violate' the law of the conservation of energy. 

But the nervous changes which are the concomitants of our 

^ e.g. the late Prof. P. G. Tait, who wrote : " The only other known thing in 
the physical universe, which is conserved in the same sense as matter is con- 
served, is energy. Hence we naturally consider energy as the other objective 
reality in the physical universe" (Article: Mechanics in "Encyclopaedia 
IBritanhica," Ninth Edition). 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE ADVERSE TO ANIMISM 93 

psychical activities are ph}'sical processes. Therefore, it is argued, 
they must run their course without being in the sHghtest degree 
affected by psychical influences. 

But the argument is generally stated more briefly and more 
dogmatically and in a way which combines the two great arguments 
against Animism drawn from physical science, namely, that from 
the kinetic view of nature and that from the law of the conserva- 
tion of energy ; I quote the following passage from a lecture by 
the late Dr J. G. Romanes as a fair sample of such statements. 
Spiritualism (or Animism), said Romanes, is unsatisfactory because 
it is opposed to the whole trend and momentum of modern 
science. " For if mind is supposed, on no matter how small a 
scale, to be a cause of motion, the fundamental axiom of science 
is impugned. This fundamental axiom is that energy can 
neither be created nor destroyed — that just as motion can 
produce nothing but motion, so, conversely, motion can be 
produced by nothing but motion. Regarded, therefore, from the 
standpoint of physical science, the theory of Spiritualism is in 
precisely the same sense as the theory of Materialism : that is to 
say, if the supposed causation takes place, it can only be supposed 
to do so by way of miracle." ^ 

If the animist retorts to this argument that the law of 
conservation of energy is founded upon measurement of the 
quantities of energy undergoing transformation in the course 
of inorganic physical processes, and that it is illegitimate to apply 
the generalization to organic processes, because these form a 
peculiar realm in which the operation of laws of the inorganic 
world may be interfered with or suspended by other modes of 
influence ; then he is met with the results of recent exact 
quantitative investigation of the energy transformations of the 
human body. These investigations ^ have shown that the energy 
value of the output of the human body in the form of work, heat, 
chemical products, and so forth, equals, almost exactly, the energy 
value of food and oxygen absorbed, that is, the value of the sum 
total of energy supplied to the body ; the difference between the 
quantities measured being so small as to fall well within the 
margin of error of the most careful experiment, 

1 Rede Lecture, published in "Contemporary Review," 18S5. 
^ Atwater, "Reports of British Association," 1904. 




CHAPTER VIII 

THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY AND OF 
THE "PSYCHOLOGY WITHOUT A SOUL" 

I HE development of modern biology has contributed not 

less powerfully than that of physical science to bring about 

the general rejection of Animism ; though the bearing of 

its discoveries has been less simple and direct. 

In all earlier ages the peculiarities of living beings, their 

powers of growth, assimilation, reproduction, self-restitution and 

so forth, had been almost universally attributed to their animation, 

that is, to the presence and operation of the soul within the body. 

Descartes was the iirst of the moderns decisively to reject this 

conception and to maintain that all the bodily processes of men 

and animals (with the single exception of the movements of the 

pineal gland of the human brain) are of a strictly mechanical 

nature, needing no psychical guidance or control. 

While Descartes' famous dictum " Cogito ergo sum " became 

the starting-point of modern Idealism, his view of the purely 

mechanical nature of all bodily processes initiated the wave of 

•confident Materialism that rose to a great height in the eighteenth 

century, especially in France. The most popular exponents 

of this doctrine were De la Mettrie ^ and Baron D'Holbach.^ 

The former, " a wit, philosopher and friend of Frederick the 

Great, traced his own materialism to Descartes, and maintained 

that the wily philosopher, purely for the sake of the parsons, had 

patched on to his theory a soul, which was in reality quite 

superfluous." ^ He argued in a lively manner for a materialistic 

view of human nature, relying chiefly upon illustrations of the 

intimate dependence of our moods, feelings, and mental processes 

■generally upon physical influences such as food and drink. Like 

Diderot and Holbach he was a hylozoist, that is to say, he attributed 

psychical life to all material things ; and, though he admitted that 

^ " Histoire naturelle de I'Ame," 1745, and " L'homme Machine," 1748. 
^ " Systeme de la Nature," 1770. 

^ A. Lange, " History of Materialism," vol. i. p. 244, 
94 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 95 

we cannot know what matter is in itself, he made all psychical 
life a property of matter, maintaining that sensation and thought 
are modifications of matter and entirely dependent upon it. 
" Man," he wrote, " is framed of materials not exceeding in value 
those of other animals ; nature has made use of one and the 
same paste — she has only diversified the ferment in working it 
up. . . . We may call the body an enlightened machine. It 
is a clock, and the fresh chyle from the food is the spring." 

D'Holbach's treatise, written under the influence of Diderot 
in a more sober and dignified style, made use of similar arguments. 
It represents the culmination of the Materialism of the eighteenth 
century, and, unlike the Materialism of Newton, Priestly, and 
Boyle, w^as avowedly atheistic. It would seem to have been 
the conjunction of Materialism and Atheism affected by these 
two writers that secured for their works so wide an influence ; 
for they aroused a violent opposition. 

But these waiters were merely the popular exponents of the 
dominant tendencies of physiological science in the eighteenth 
century. G. E. Stahl has been mentioned in Chapter V. as one 
of the leading physiologists of the earlier part of the century who 
continued the older animistic tradition. He " put forward and 
brilliantly maintained the view that all the chemical events of 
the living body, even though they might superficially resemble, 
were at the bottom wholly different from, the chemical changes 
taking place in the laboratory, since in the living body all 
chemical changes were directly governed by the sensitive soul, 
aninia sensitiva, which pervaded all parts and presided over all 
events." ^ 

" Stahl's fundamental position is that between living things, 
so long as they are alive, however simple, and non-living things, 
however composite, however complex in their phenomena, there 
is a great gulf fixed. The former, so long as they are alive, 
are actuated by an immaterial agent, the sensitive soul, the latter 
are not. . . . Further, the living body is fitted for special ends and 
purposes ; the living body does not exist for itself; it is constituted 
to be the true and continued minister of the soul. The body is 
made for the soul, the soul is not made for, and is not the 
product of, the body."^ Stahl himself wrote "We may therefore 
rightly and truly conclude that all the actions of the body, both 
those which concern its structure and those which relate to the 

^ Sir M. Foster, op. cit., p. 168. - Sir M. Foster, op. cit., p. 169. 



96 BODY AND MIND 

preservation of its composition, are carried out by the soul itself 
for its own uses and ends, and are directed and brought to 
completion, knowingly and properly, in the proportions and 
relations which fit those ends and uses." And again he wrote 
" Vital activities are directly administered and exercised by the 
soul itself, and are truly organic acts carried out in corporeal 
instruments of a superior acting cause, in order to bring about 
certain effects, which are not only in general certain, and in 
particular necessary, but also in each and every particular adapted, 
in a special and yet most complete manner, to the needs of 
the moment and to the various irregularities introduced by 
accidental external causes. Vital activities, vital movements, 
cannot, as some recent crude speculations suppose, have any real 
likeness to such movements as, in an- ordinary way, depend on 
the material condition of a body and take place without any direct 
use or end or aim." 

Thus Stahl from the side of physiology, as Descartes from 
the side of psychology, defined more clearly than any of their 
predecessors the issue between Animism and Materialism. By 
conceiving the soul as an immaterial teleological factor controlling 
the physical processes of the living body, he set upon its modern 
lines the controversy as to the reality of a teleological determina- 
tion of the processes of living beings. The subsequent history 
of modern physiology is the history of the constantly increasing- 
ascendancy of the purely mechanical view of the processes of 
the animal body over the vitalistic and teleological modes of 
explanation. 

The first great step towards this ascendancy had been made 
when, in the year 1628, William Harvey announced and demon- 
strated his discovery of the circulation of the blood, explaining it 
by purely physical and mechanical reasoning. A little later in the 
seventeenth century, the new mode of purely mechanical and 
chemical explanation of physiological processes was greatly pro- 
moted by Franciscus Sylvius of Leyden and his pupils. Van 
Helmont had studied the chemical processes of the body, but had 
mingled with his chemistry strange mystical doctrines and obscure 
conceptions of animal spirits and Arckci, which he had derived 
from Paracelsus. " The spiritualistic fancies of Van Helmont, and 
still more the earlier ones of Paracelsus, had had the tendency to 
make men think that chemical inquiry, in contrast with physical 
inquiry, was in some way necessarily bound up with speculations 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 97 

about invisible agencies of a spiritual kind ; and this doubtless 
was more or less a bar to men of sober and exact thought enter- 
ing upon that line of inquiry. To Sylvius at least is due the 
credit of showing that there was no such necessary connexion 
between chemistry and spiritualism ; that on the contrary the 
newer chemistry in its attempts to solve vital problems trod the 
path of the most valued Materialism." ^ 

■While Sylvius and his pupils set chemical physiology, especi- 
ally the chemistry of digestion, upon the path of its modern 
development ; the influence of the more exact mechanical concep- 
tions introduced by Galileo, the first great victory of which when 
applied to physiology was Harvey's discovery of the circulation 
of the blood, continued to bear fruit. In Italy, Borelli, a mathe- 
matician trained in the school of Galileo, first gave a clear 
account of the mechanics of respiration ; and in England a small 
band of Harvey's followers, Hooke, Lower, Mayow, applied the 
new understanding of the nature of combustion to explain the 
chemistry of respiration, the relations of the respiratory and cir- 
culatory systems, and the part played by the blood in conducting 
air to the tissues to sustain their processes of combustion. 

These various mechanical and chemical modes of explanation 
of bodily processes were brought together in the teaching of 
Boerhave of Leyden, perhaps the most influential physiologist 
of the earlier part of the eighteenth century. And the tradition 
was given an assured predominance over the animistic doctrines 
of Stahl and his successors by the great influence of Albrecht 
Haller, generally called the father of modern physiology, whose 
" Elementa Physiologiae " was completed in the year 1765. 

Thus, when De la Mettrie and D'Holbach wrote their popular 
treatises with the avowed purpose of propagating the materialistic 
view of the nature of man, their doctrines could find solid support 
in the teachings of the most influential physiologists of their 
time : they may in fact be regarded as expressing the influence 
of those teachings upon minds of a positive and materialistic 
tendency. 

The rapid progress of the physical sciences in the early 
decades of the nineteenth century seemed to bring much nearer 
to realisation the possibility of complete physical and chemical 
explanations of the processes of living bodies ; and at the same 
time much of their technical apparatus of research was found 
1 Sir M. Foster, op. cit., p. 153. 
7 



98 BODY AND MIND 

to be applicable in physiological investigations. There was a 
renewal of physiological research and progress, in which Johannes 
Miiller was the leading spirit ; and a confident expectation of 
the rapid reduction of all vital processes to terms of physics 
and chemistry began to be widely entertained. Although 
Miiller himself must be reckoned among the vitalists, the 
great school of physiology founded by him made splendid 
progress along these physico-chemical lines ; and the continued 
success of this way of physiological thought and research 
secured for it an undisputed predominance over the vitalistic 
physiology and seemed to justify to the full the hopes of its 
adherents. This triumphant progress of the mechanistic school 
of physiology soon gave rise to a fresh outburst of dogmatic 
Materialism. This time Germany was the centre of the storm, 
and its moving spirits were Moleschott,^ Karl Vogt, and Ludwig 
Biichner.- These writers, especially the last, exercised a great 
influence on popular thought. Their favourite dictum was — 
" No matter without force, no force without matter." The 
language and thought of all three was open to the charge of 
confusion, inconsistency, and philosophical crudity, to a degree 
that prevented them exerting any serious influence in academic 
circles. Nevertheless these materialists, and indeed the French 
materialists of the eighteenth century also, had made some 
refinement upon the crudity of Hobbes and others of their 
forerunners. Their Materialism consisted chiefly in the repudia- 
tion of the notion of immaterial or spiritual substances, agents, 
forces, or modes of being, rather than in any assertion so crude 
as that thought is nothing but matter or motion of matter. 
They were concerned to show that matter consists not merely 
of inert solid particles, capable only of moving under the 
influence of external forces ; but that it is rather endowed with 
intrinsic powers of activity, of which thought and feeling are 
special developments. For, as Lotze has pointed out, few 
modern materialists have maintained doctrines so crude as 
those commonly attributed to them by their opponents. 

In our own day Materialism has undergone a further re- 
finement which makes it less easy to attack or refute and has 
in fact rendered it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to draw 
any line between the more subtle forms of Materialism and 
doctrines that are classified under the head of Idealism. 
1 " Der Kreislauf des Lebens," 1852. ^ •< Kraft und Stoflf," 1856, 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 99 

Before noting the position of present day Materialism, let 
us follow in more detail those lines of development of biological 
science which have done most to bring about a wide acceptance 
of it and of the other psycho-physical doctrines that agree with 
it in rejecting all forms of Animism. 

The Search for the Seat of the Soul 

We have seen that the ancients entertained various notions 
as to the seat of the soul, assigning the several vital and 
psychical functions that they distinguished to this or that 
bodily organ, or regarding the soul as equally present and 
active in all parts of the body. In the second century of our 
era, Galen, the great Roman physician and anatomist, made a 
considerable advance upon Aristotle's physiology ; he showed by 
his dissections that the brain is connected with the muscles and 
with the sense-organs by the nerves, and taught that it is some- 
how concerned in mental process. After Galen no progress in 
anatomy and physiology was made for more than a thousand 
years ; in fact, the authority of Galen remained supreme until in the 
middle of the sixteenth century the labours of Vesalius set these 
sciences once more on the path of progress. We have seen that 
Vesalius, while he took a materialistic view of the nature of soul, 
distinguished three souls, the vital, natural, and chief souls, each 
of which was but the sum of the spirits of corresponding function, 
and that he assigned to the brain the chief soul, the sum of the 
animal spirits, whose functions were distinctly mental. He tauo-ht 
that the animal spirit is made in the brain and that the brlin 
influences the muscles and other organs by sending out the 
animal spirit along the nerves. " He was clear that th'^e soul was 
engendered in and by the brain, but beyond that he knew next to 
nothing. Vivisection taught him that when the brain is removed, 
sensation and movement are lost ; but it taught him little more 
than this."i He observed also "that the mass of the brain 
attains its highest dimensions in man, which we know to be the 
most perfect animal, and that his brain is found to be bigger than 
that of three oxen ; and then in proportion to the sile of the 
body, first the ape, and next the dog exhibit a large brain, 
suggesting that animals excel in the size of their brains in pro- 

^ Sir M. Foster, op. cit., Lect. x. 



V 



lOO BODY AND MIND 

portion as they seem the more openly and clearly to be endowed 
with the faculties of the chief soul (i.e. mental powers)." 

A hundred years later the brain was still not fully established 
as the seat of the soul, for Van Helmont assigned that honour to 
the orifice of the stomach. 

Willis, Sedleian professor in the University of Oxford, a con- 
temporary of Descartes and one of the founders of the "Royal 
Society," was fully aware of the importance of the brain for 
mental processes, the higher modes of which, in the case of man, 
he • attributed to a rational incorporeal soul ; nevertheless he 
distinguished a corporeal soul consisting of two parts, one of 
flame residing in the blood, the other of light diffused throughout 
the nervous system and in a less degree through other tissues. 

Although Descartes was but an amateur in physiology, his 
assignment of the rational soul to the brain and his speculative de- 
scription of the functions of the brain, mark a distinct epoch in the 
search for the seat of the soul. For, from his time onwards, the 
brain was securely established as the seat of the mental functions 
and as the medium through which the soul effects its commerce 
with the other parts of the body ; and, though Stahl regarded the 
soul as operating directly in all parts of the body, the search for 
the seat of the soul followed the lines laid down by Descartes, i.e. 
it continued to be the search for that part of the brain in which 
the nerves come most closely together. 

Stensen and Borelli showed themselves to be clearly aware 
that the brain is the seat of sensation and originator of bodily 
movements. But no progress was made with this problem until 
the middle of the eighteenth century, when Haller applied to it 
his penetrating intellect. He rejected Stahl's view, that the soul 
acts directly in all parts of the body ; but he argued " no narrower 
seat can be allotted to the soul than the conjoint origin of all the 
nerves ; nor can any structure be proposed as its seat, except that 
to which we can trace all the nerves. For it will be easily under- 
stood that the sensoriiun commune ought to lack no feeling of any 
part of the whole animated body nor any nerve which can convey 
from any part of the body the impression of external objects. 
And the same may be said of the nerves of movement. Where- 
fore, even quite apart from the experimental results described 
above, we cannot admit as the exclusive seat of the soul, either 
the corpus callosum or the septum lucidttm or the tiny pineal gland, 
or the corpora striata or any particular region of the brain."" 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY loi 

And he concluded that " both sensation and movement have their 
source in the medulla of the brain. This, therefore, is the seat of 
the soul." By medulla he denoted the whole of the central mass 
of both cerebrum and cerebellum. Haller nevertheless inclined 
to the view that different parts of the brain are specially con- 
cerned in different mental functions ; though in summing up he 
wrote: "Our present knowledge does not permit us to speak 
with any show of truth about the more complicated functions of 
the mind, or to assign in the brain to imagination its seat, to 
common sensation its seat, to memory its seat." 

In spite of this vague foreshadowing by Haller of the modern 
doctrine of cerebral localization of mental functions, the search for 
the seat of the soul continued to be prosecuted under the influence 
of the reasoning that led Descartes to choose the pineal gland. 
It was held that the soul must be present at some one spot in the 
brain, where it could receive or be affected by all the agitations 
brought from the sense-organs by the converging sensory nerves, 
and where it could control the outflow of nervous impulses along 
the motor nerves ; for the soul was conceived as playing upon 
the central ends of groups of motor nerves and originating 
in them impulses appropriate to the production of the movements 
it willed, much as a musician plays upon the keys of a piano, 
striking them in combinations appropriate to the production of 
harmonious chords. According to this way of thinking, it was 
necessary that the seat of the soul should be a central and single 
organ in the brain, and, since almost all parts of the brain exist 
in bilateral symmetrical duplication, the choice was strictly limited 
and fell in turn upon each of the single median structures, e.g. the 
septum Incidiini, the coi'pus callosum, the central ventricle ; all of 
which, however, were in turn shown to have no immediate 
connexion with consciousness. 

No less a man than R. H. Lotze was the last psychologist of 
note seriously to accept this reasoning ; and though his know- 
ledge of anatomy and physiology of the brain forbade him to 
designate any one part as the seat of the soul, and though he 
afterwards relinquished this view, nevertheless, in his " Medizinische 
Psychologie" (published in 185 i), he postulated such a central 
seat of the soul. 

Early in the nineteenth century, the great anatomist Gall laid 
the foundations of our modern doctrine of the localization of 
cerebral functions, by means of his comparative studies of the 



102 BODY AND MIND 

brains of men and animals. From tlie time of Gall the study of 
cerebral functions has been carried on by an ever increasing army 
of keen workers. Forty years ago it was still possible for one 
party of experimental observers to maintain that there obtains no 
specialization of function of the parts of the great brain, that each 
part is of similar undifferentiated function with all the rest of its 
substance. But Broca's discovery of the motor speech-centre, a 
small part of the cortex of the left frontal lobe of the cerebrum, 
rapidly gained general acceptance. Since the establishment of 
this instance of the dependence of a special mental function on 
the integrity of a particular part of the brain, an immense 
amount of labour has been devoted to the problem, and has 
proved that the cerebral cortex, the thin surface layer of 
grey matter, is the part of the brain most immediately con- 
cerned in mental process ^ ; it has been shown also that a large 
part of the cerebral cortex can be mapped out into areas, the 
integrity of each of which is essential to the enjoyment of certain 
modes of consciousness. The evidence is especially clear in 
the case of the sensations and perceptions of the higher senses. 
Let us glance at the nature of the evidence which has convinced 
all physiologists that all the visual perception and sensation and 
imagery of any normal human being are invariably accompanied 
by certain physico-chemical processes in the cortical grey matter 
of the occipital pole of his brain ; and that visual sensation is 
normally experienced, only when these processes are excited by 
the arrival of nervous impulses travelling from the retina directly 
to this part of the cortex. 

First, it has been shown that, in man and the higher animals, 
the retina is connected with this part of the brain cortex by a 
system of nerve fibres more direct and more numerous than those 
that connect it with any other part. Secondly, it has been 
shown that in animals this part of the cortex remains in a state 
of very incomplete development, if the animal is in any way 
deprived of the use of its eyes from birth onwards ; while it is 
known that, if a human being is blind from birth, or loses his 
eyesight within the first two years of life, he remains devoid 
of all visual imagery, all power of visual representation or 
imagination. 

Thirdly, it has been shown by the clinical and post mortem 

^ There is some ground for believing that some of the masses of grey matter 
at the base of the brain have equally intimate relation with conscious life. 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 103 

study of a very large number of cases that, if, in an adult 
human being, the tract of nerve fibres which connects the retina 
of one eye with this part of the cortex is broken across in any 
part of its course, that eye becomes blind ; and that, if both 
tracts are thus broken across, total and permanent blindness is 
the result, even though the lesion be confined to the upper part 
of the tract, and the connections of the retinae with the lower 
parts of the brain remain uninjured. In such cases the powers 
of visual imagination may remain unimpaired. 

Fourthly, it has been shown that destruction of, or serious 
injury to, this part of the cortex always impairs more or less 
seriously the powers of vision. If the whole of the occipital 
cortex of one hemisphere of the brain '(say the left) is destroyed 
(as by the rupture of a blood vessel in that region), the patient 
suffers permanently the defect of vision known as hemianopsia, 
i.e. the optical impressions made on the left halves of both retina; 
no longer excite visual sensation ; for the left halves of both 
retinse are connected directly only with the left occipital cortex.^ 
In rare cases in which the occipital cortex of both cerebral 
hemispheres is gravely injured, visual sensation, perception, and 
imagination are almost completely destroyed ; and, though no case 
of complete destruction of the occipital cortex of both hemispheres 
has been carefully studied, the evidence at present available is 
held by almost all physiologists to warrant the belief that in such 
a case the patient would be completely deprived of all power 
of visual sensation, perception, and imagination ; and it seems 
highly probable that the deprivation would be permanent and 
would be so complete that he would not even be aware of the 
nature of the gap in his mental life. 

Similar observations have yielded almost equally strong 
evidence that the sensations, perceptions, and representations of 
each of the other senses are similarly dependent on the integrity 
of other circumscribed areas of the cerebral cortex ; that they 
are invariably accompanied by nervous processes in those parts 
of the brain, and that they are no longer experienced when the 
nervous structures of those parts are destroyed. We have 
evidence that is, if possible, even more conclusive, showing that 

^ This statement is perhaps not strictly true. Some authorities beUeve that 
a small central region of each retina is connected directly with the occipital 
cortex of both hemispheres ; for in many cases of hemianopsia this small central 
part of both retina; continues to function normall}^ 



104 BODY AND MIND 

the production and control of all skilled voluntary movement is 
dependent on the integrity of the extensive region of the cortex 
known as the Rolandic or sensori-motor area ; and that the 
skilled movements of the various parts of the body, the fingers, 
thumb, wrist, tongue, lips, etc., are dependent on the integrity of 
different specialized parts of this area. For not only is the 
power of production of such movements lost when these parts of 
the cortex are destroyed, but it has been abundantly shown that 
artificial direct stimulation of these parts excites movements of 
the corresponding parts of the body. And in this case also, the 
anatomical connexions of these parts with the corresponding 
muscles has been worked out in considerable detail. 

Again, we have now good evidence that outside these sensory 
and motor areas of the cortex, which together make up less than 
half its total extent, are parts whose integrity seems essential to 
such mental processes as the synthetic elaboration of the sensations 
involved in intelligent perception ; for example, it is established 
that the intelligent appreciation of the significance of written 
words depends on the integrity of a small part of the cortex that 
lies a little in front of the " visual area," or area directly concerned in 
visual sensation. And it seems to be proved that injury to such 
parts may leave the patient capable of enjoying the normal range 
of sensations, while depriving him of the power of interpreting 
certain of them ; so that, e.g.^ he may remain capable of dis- 
tinguishing objects in his visual field, though he is incapable of 
recognizing them, of naming them, or of reacting upon them in 
any intelligent fashion. 

It is unnecessary to pursue the evidence in greater detail. 
Observation and experiment of the kind we have been con- 
sidering seem to have established beyond serious question the 
doctrine of the localization of cerebral functions ; that is to say 
that, although the functions of many parts of the brain remain 
obscure, we are compelled to believe that the exercise of various 
kinds of mental activity and the enjoyment of various modes of 
consciousness, including all that is properly called sensation and 
imagery, are invariably bound up with, and are directly dependent 
upon, the occurrence of nervous processes in various parts of the 
brain, parts consisting of nervous elements of highly specialized 
functions, which are distributed widely throughout the cortex of 
the cerebral hemispheres, and possibly in other parts of the brain 
also. 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 105 

Thus the search for a punctual seat of the soul, for some one 
spot at which the sensory nerves might be supposed to converge 
to act upon the soul, and at which in turn the soul might be. 
supposed to play upon the central ends of the motor nerves, has 
been shown to be a hopeless one : it is proved that there is no 
such seat of the soul. 



The Doctrine of the Reflex Type of all Nervous Process 

Closely connected with this search for the seat of the soul, 
and closely allied to the failure of this search in its bearing upon 
our problem, has been the development of the doctrine of reflex 
action. 

Descartes' bold speculations anticipated the modern doctrine 
of reflex action ; and the waitings of Willis and of other physiolo- 
gists of the seventeenth century also contain some vague fore- 
shadowings of it. But it was not until the middle of the 
nineteenth century that the nature of reflex action was clearly 
understood. Descartes distinguished between the afferent and 
motor modes of nervous conduction, but it is not clear that he 
conceived the processes as taking place in two different sets of 
nerves ; and it was Sir Charles Bell who first clearly demonstrated, 
early in the nineteenth century, that all the peripheral nerves are 
of two kinds — the afferent nerves which, entering the spinal cord 
by the posterior nerve-roots, carry up impulses from the sense- 
organs ; and the efferent nerves which, issuing from the cord by 
the ventral roots, carry impulses from the central nervous system 
to the muscles and other executive organs. 

It had, of course, long been observed that, in both men 
and animals, certain simple movements can be evoked in a 
regular involuntary machine - like fashion by the application 
of certain forms of stimulation to the sense organs ; e.g. the 
winking of the eyelid and the contraction of the pupil by the 
sudden flashing of a light upon the eye ; the withdrawal of a 
hand or foot by the pricking of the skin of the part. It was 
known also that some of these reflex movements may be excited 
in man, not only without his volition, but even in spite of his 
utmost voluntary efforts to prevent them. This remarkable fact 
could not fail to excite the attention of students of the nervous 
system ; and early in the nineteenth century it was shown that 
some of these movements may be equally well excited in both 



io6 BODY AND MIND - 

men and animals, when the brain is destroyed or the spinal cord 
severed from the brain ; when, for example, the spinal cord of a 
man has been broken across by accident , it is in some cases 
possible to evoke movements of the lower limbs by tickling or 
pricking the skin ; and in such cases the stimulus evokes in the 
patient neither feeling nor sensation. It was clear, then, that 
the integrity of the spinal cord is the sufficient condition of 
such reflex response. In the middle of the last century a 
famous controversy was waged over the question whether such 
reflex movements, effected through the spinal cord in the 
absence of the brain, imply the presence of some kind of 
soul-life, some kind of psychical activity, associated with the 
nervous processes of the cord. For some of these movements 
are so nicely adapted to effect results beneficial to the organ- 
ism, that they seemed to some observers to imply intelligent 
and purposive direction. But physiologists, with few exceptions, 
soon came to hold very decidedly the opinion that all such spinal 
reflex actions are determined in a purely mechanical fashion. 
And this opinion has received very strong support from tlie 
modern studies of the minute structure of the nervous system. 
These studies have shown that in almost all cases the sensory 
fibre, which carries up impulses from some sense-organ and enters 
the spinal cord by a dorsal nerve-root, sends across the spinal 
cord a branch which (either directly or through the medium of 
another neurone) comes into contact with one or more of the 
motor neurones, whose long branches or axones pass down to 
the muscles as their motor nerves. These studies, in fact, 
have displayed the material mechanisms by means of which the 
incoming impulses of the sensory nerves are distributed to motor 
nerves, through systems of nervous connexions in the spinal 
cord of various degrees of complexity ; and there is little reason 
to doubt that, in all spinal reflexes, the paths taken by the 
nervous impulses, and the conjunctions of efferent nerves thus 
thrown into action by them, are wholly determined by the 
material connexions of the nervous elements, and by their 
physico-chemical state at the moment of the arrival of the 
afferent impulse. 

This revelation of the material mechanism conditioning the 
seemingly purposive reflex action, has cut away the ground from 
under those who would maintain that the spinal reflexes are 
psychically guided in any way. But the conception of reflex 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 107 

action as a seemingly purposive, though in reahty a mechanically 
determined, response to the stimulus applied to the sense-organ 
has exercised a much more important influence upon the con- 
sideration of the psycho-physical problem. For the incessant 
labours of a multitude of workers has revealed the fact that not 
only the spinal cord, but the whole of the brain also, is built up on 
the reflex plan ; that the whole of the brain may properly be 
regarded as made up of a multitude of nervous loops, interlacing 
and communicating with one another, it is true, in wonderfully 
complex fashion, yet still being essentially loops or long bye- 
paths ; each of these diverges from the afferent limb of some 
spinal reflex arc to ascend to the brain, and, after traversing the 
brain, descends to join the efferent or motor limb of some spinal 
reflex arc. Just as it is possible to trace the path of the spinal 
reflex impulse across the cord from sensory to motor nerve, so it 
is possible to reconstruct in imagination the ascent of the various 
sensory paths to the lower brain, thence to the appropriate sensory 
areas of the cortex, and thence again in great converging systems 
to the motor area of the cortex ; whence they descend by the great 
pyramidal tract to be distributed to the various motor mechanisms 
of the cord. And this reconstruction is no mere piece of fancy,, 
but is fully warranted by a great quantity of careful observations. 
Hence we have to suppose that, when a man sees an object and 
stretches out his hand to take it, the nervous excitation follows 
such a long loop-path, passing up to the visual cortex, thence by 
long association-tracts to the motor cortex, and so down by the 
pyramidal tract to the spinal centres through which all movements 
of the arm are effected. And we have to believe that the sensa- 
tions which are involved in this perceptual reaction are somehow 
determined by the nervous current as it traverses the cortex of 
the brain in the course of this long journey. 

Again, there is good reason to believe, though here we are on 
less firm ground, that all the processes of the brain, even those 
that accompany the most abstruse thought, conform to the same 
fundamental reflex type. Everywhere, then, in the central nervous 
system, in the brain no less than in the spinal cord, there seems 
to be continuity of the physical processes of nervous conduction ; 
nowhere do we find the sensory nerve coming suddenly to an 
end at any place vv^here its physical process might be supposed 
to terminate in giving rise to a sensation or any other psychical 
effect ; and nowhere does the impulse of the efferent nerve seem 



io8 BODY AND MIND 

to be originated as a physical process without physical cause or 
antecedent ; rather there seems always and everywhere to be 
continuity of material substance and of physical process, nowhere 
and at no time spontaneous or psychical origination of nervous 
process. 

The study of spinal reflex action has shown us also that the 
energy expended in the efferent process need bear no simple and 
constant relation to the magnitude or intensity of the excitation 
by which it is induced ; that rather the nervous system contains 
in its various parts stores of potential energy, which may be 
liberated in large quantities by very small excitations, so that 
under favourable conditions a very slight sensory stimulus may 
provoke a violent reflex action. We can, therefore, no longer 
see in the disproportion of physical effect to physical cause, 
in the case of intense voluntary reaction upon a stimulus, any 
evidence of psychical intervention in the chain of physical 
■events. 

It is obvious that the two lines of development of our 
knowledge of the brain and its functions reviewed in the 
foregoing paragraphs, necessitate the rejection of any such 
conception of the interaction of the soul with the body, as 
was commonly entertained half a century ago and was clearly 
set forth by Lotze in his " Medizinische Psychologie." For 
this conception had postulated the abutting of all sensory paths 
about some central part of the brain, the seat of the soul ; the 
abrupt termination of all the sensory nervous processes at that 
place ; and the equally abrupt inception of the excitation of 
motor nerves without physical cause or antecedent. And, 
though the argument is seldom explicitly set forth, yet there 
can be no doubt that these two allied developments of physio- 
logical knowledge have done much to banish the belief that 
the brain is the seat of psycho-physical interactions, of action 
and reaction between soul and body.^ But their influence 
in this direction has worked in conjunction with other lines of 
physiological thought ; and these we must consider, before we 
can appreciate the full force of the physiological argument. 

^ Prof. Th. Ziehen regards the absence of any gap in the chains of physical 
-causation in the brain as the most important of all the grounds on which he 
bases his rejection of psycho-physical interaction. " Gehii-n u. Seelenleben," 
Leipzig, 1902, p. 39. 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 



Unconscious Cerebration 



109. 



We have seen that reflex movements of a seemingly 
purposive character may occur without, and even in spite of, the 
voHtion of the subject, and, in fact, without the subject becoming 
aware of the stimulus that evokes the movement or of the move- 
ment itself Now, in certain abnonnal states, actions of much more 
complicated character are performed, while the subject seems 
to remain unconscious of them. Thus, epileptics somietimes 
execute, in the period succeeding to an acute attack, long trains, 
of action that imply intelligent design and choice of means, as. 
well as nice control and regulation of all bodily movements ; and 
yet the subject, returning after a time to his normal state, 
asserts that of the whole period during which these actions were 
performed he retains not the slightest remembrance, that he is. 
absolutely ignorant of all that he did and of all that happened 
to him during this space of time. Similar examples of the 
intelligent performance of complex actions of which no recollec- 
tion can be evoked, are afforded by subjects in a state of trance 
or somnambulism, and by others suffering from lesions of the 
brain. Other persons, apparently normal in all respects, have 
wakened up from sleep to find that they have written down 
original verses or the solution of some problem that had remained 
insoluble up to the moment of falling asleep. 

The feature common to all these cases is the inability of the 
subject to remember anything of the execution or the circum- 
stances of actions that seem^ed to imply perception, feeling,, 
reasoning, and volition. Now the recollection of any past action 
is our only direct evidence that that action was consciously 
performed, especially if, as in many of these cases, the subject is 
irresponsive to all questioning during the execution of the actions. 
It is argued, then, that we have in these cases examples of highly 
complex, purposive, and intelligently controlled action taking 
place without consciousness ; it would seem to follow that in 
these cases the material mechanisms of the nervous system suffice 
for the execution of such actions, independently of all conscious- 
ness or psychical guidance ; and, therefore, we seem compelled 
to believe that, when similar actions are executed consciously, 
the nervous mechanisms are the only essential conditions ; 
that their physico-chemical processes constitute the complete 
causal sequences intervening between the sense-impressions and 



no BODY AND MIND 

our reactions upon them ; and that consciousness is a superfluous 
accompaniment, so far as the causal sequence is concerned.^ 

The Association- Psychology and the Law of Habit 

The association-psychology, founded by Locke and Hume, and 
■developed by a succession of British writers, reached its climax 
of confident explanation of all mental process in the works of 
Alexander Bain and Herbert Spencer, about the same time that 
the physiological facts and inferences described above were brought 
to light. From the first it had been clear that the association- 
psychology lends itself admirably to a physiological interpretation 
of mental process ; and, as early as the middle of the eighteenth 
century, Hartley sketched a system of physiological explana- 
tion of mental process, based on the assumption that all mental 
processes consist in the association and associative reproduction 
■of ideas. But the increase of knowledge of the nervous system 
brought by the researches of the nineteenth century, provided a 
much less inadequate basis for such a system of explanations 
than was available to Hartley. According to the association- 
psychology, all mental process consists in the reception of im- 
pressions by the senses and in the revival of these impressions in 
various conjunctions and sequences, as the simple and complex 
ideas of memory and of imagination, according to the laws of 
association and associative reproduction ; and it was held that, 
by the careful analysis of instances of all types, the various laws 
of association recognized by the earlier writers may properly be 
reduced to a single principle, namely, that of association of ideas 
in virtue of their immediate succession in time. 

Now, a fixed habit of action resembles very closely a reflex 
action ; an habitual action may be effected involuntary, without 
design or reflection, and with very little or no consciousness of 
the action or of the impressions on the senses by which it is 
evoked and guided. We have, therefore, good warrant for 
believing that nervous mechanisms, such as have been shown 
to be the essential conditions of reflex actions, are the sufficient 
conditions of habitual actions. Further, a habit is formed by the 
repetition of an action on the repetition of particular sense- 
impressions ; that is to say, the repeated sequence of a particular 

1 The late Prof. Huxley described a case of such apparently unconscious, 
yet intelligent and complex, activities, and attached great weight to such cases 
as justifying the denial of psycho-physical interaction (Collected Essays, vol. i.). 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY in 

action upon a particular sense-impression results in the formation 
of a mechanism consisting of a system of nervous connexions in 
the brain, which system is capable of bringing about the appropri- 
ate response to the sense-impression in a purely mechanical 
fashion. The nervous system, then, is plastic and has a tend- 
ency to take on habits ; wherever the nervous current runs from 
one part to another, it leaves behind a more or less enduring 
tendency for the path it has traversed to be an open path, a 
path of low resistance, between the two parts. Here, then, is a 
basis for the physiological and mechanical explanation of the 
course of all mental process in terms of the association-psych- 
ology. We have only to suppose (as we have good warrant for 
doing) that the rise to consciousness of each idea is accompanied 
by the excitation of some particular group of nervous elements 
in the brain ; and to assume that, when one sense-impression 
following upon another gives rise to a second idea following 
immediately upon another, the nervous current strikes across 
from the one group of nervous elements to the other. If so 
much be assumed, then it follows from the law of habit that the 
revival of the one idea ^ will tend to be followed by, or accompanied 
by, the revival of the other ; and we have in outline a scheme 
for the explanation of all that clustering, cohesion, and succession 
of simple ideas, which, according to the principles of the associa- 
tion-psychology, constitute the whole of mental process. For 
this scheme is held to afford a mechanical explanation, not only 
of the facts of association and reproduction of ideas, but also of 
memory itself; it is said the idea is merely a cluster of simple 
ideas or sensational elements (as Locke first taught), which cohere, 
in virtue of the principle of habit, in the groupings in which they 
are evoked by the fortuitous conjunctions of sense-impressions. 

Such is the conception of mental process which has gained a 
wide currency, especially among the biologists ; and, since this 
conceptual scheme makes use of no other principles and faculties 
than those inherent in the nervous system, it has played no 
inconsiderable part in banishing "the belief in psychical inter- 
vention with the course of the physical processes of the brain.^ 

1 I here use the word idea in the sense given it by Hume and the Associa- 
tionists, as equivalent to presentation, and as covering both percept and image. 

2 The most consistent elaboration of this mechanical system of explanation 
of mental process may be found in Prof. Ziehen's " Outlines of Physiological 
Psychology." 



112 BODY AND MIND 

The four lines of development of physiological fact and 
theory reviewed in the foregoing pages have, then, all tended 
to the one conclusion, namely, that the actions of man are capable 
of being fully explained in terms of mechanism — that a sufficient 
knowledge of the structure and physico-chemical constitution of 
the nervous system would enable us to describe completely in 
terms of physical and chemical changes the causal sequence of 
events that issues in any action, no matter how much deliberation, 
choice, and effort may seem to be involved in its preparation and 
determination. 

Long ago, Spinoza, in proposing to regard mind and bod}^ as 
but two aspects of one reality, found himself compelled to make 
this assumption. He wrote : " Certainly no man hath yet deter- 
mined what are the powers of the body ; I mean that none has 
yet learnt from experience what the body may perform by mere 
laws of nature, considering it only as a material thing, and what 
it cannot do without the mind's determination of it. For nobody 
has known as yet the frame of the body so thoroughly as to 
explain all its operations ; not to say that in brutes much is 
noted which doth far surpass human cunning, and that men 
walking in their sleep often perform, so sleeping, that which they 
would never dare waking : which is proof enough that the body 
may, merely by the laws of its own constitution, do much that 
its own mind is amazed at. Again, there is none can tell how 
and in what manner the mind moves the body, what measure of 
motion it can impart to it, or with what velocity." 

Spinoza, in making this great assumption so contrary to all 
the accepted ways of thought of his time, could appeal only to 
men's profound ignorance of the body and its processes ; whereas 
those who make the same assumption in the present age appeal 
with confidence and good show of reason to our knowledge 
of the body and its processes, claiming that the knowledge 
which we now have amply justifies the assumption and allows 
us to understand in a general way the mechanics of human 
conduct. 

In strict logic, the physiological knowledge we have been 
considering does not do more than this ; it does not provide any 
positive argument against psycho-physical interaction, although 
in the minds of many it has seemed to justify and necessitate 
this negative conclusion. 

But we have now to consider certain other physiological and 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 113 

biological arguments which are held to prove the dependence of 
all mental process on the brain. 



The dependence of ThongJit on Brain-function. 

The materialists of the eighteenth century based their argu- 
ments very largely on facts of the kind we have to consider in 
this section. But modern research has rendered much more exact 
and extensive our knowledge of these facts. 

First and foremost, we have to put all the facts which, in thQ 
course of our description of the search for the seat of the soul, 
were referred to as proving the localization of cerebral functions ; 
especially the facts of brain-lesion, which show that the sensations 
and imagery of each of the senses are dependent upon the 
integrity of special parts of the cerebral cortex and that other 
special mental functions are abolished by injuries of other parts. 
But there are many other evidences of the intimate dependence of 
mental processes upon the brain-functions, of which the principal 
are indicated in the following paragraphs. 

There obtains throughout the animal scale, and also within 
the course of development of each human being, a close corres- 
pondence between the degree of development of the brain and the 
degree of development of intelligence or mental capacity in 
general. Passing over the facts of the comparative size of the 
brain in the various animal species, let us consider for a moment 
the parallelism of mental and cerebral development in the human 
being. The lack of all but a vague sentiency and appetition in 
the new-born infant corresponds to a very undeveloped state of its 
brain : not only is its mass very much less than that of the adult 
brain ; but also, microscopic study has shown that, for some time 
after birth, the majority of the nervous elements of the cerebrum 
are in a condition in which they cannot take part in any concerted 
nervous activities. Gradually, throughout all the years of child- 
hood and adolescence, more and more of these elements become 
perfected and organized within the general system or hierarchy of 
minor systems ; first, as the sensory powers develop, the neurons 
of the sensory areas become organized, later those of the inter- 
vening " association-areas," which subserve the higher mental 
functions ; and this process of the organization of fresh neural 
elements continues far on into adult life, multitudes of new 
branches and twigs growing out from millions of nerve cells to 



114 BODY AND MIND 

establish a plexus or network of constantly increasing complexity, 
in correspondence with the development of knowledge and intel- 
lectual power. Then, as middle age begins to pass over into old 
age, this multiplication of twigs and branches and this formation 
of new connexions between the neural elements come to an end ; 
and at the same time the mind becomes less and less capable of 
making new acquisitions of knowledge, of skill, of capacity of any 
kind ; until in advanced age the powers of acquisition and reten- 
tion are reduced to a minimum : the old man lives again in the 
scenes of his youth, and remembers hardly, if at all, the events of 
yesterday. 

Again, we know how, when the surface of the brain becomes 
chronically inflamed, the mental powers of the patient exhibit 
a progressive deterioration running parallel with the deterioration 
of the grey matter of the cortex ; so that a man of splendid 
intellect and fine character may be gradually reduced to a state 
in which he stands, both intellectually and morally, below the level 
of the higher animals ; a state of complete mental degradation, 
from which he is released only by death. Surely the most terrible 
object the mind of man can contemplate ! And modern medical 
science is showing more and more clearly that many mental 
disorders are primarily due to disorders of the body which, by 
poisoning the blood, secondarily produce a chronic poisoning of 
the brain, and thereby a degradation of intellect and character. 

We have to take account also of the many modes in which 
mental process may be profoundly affected or arrested by physical 
agents acting on the body. A very small quantity of laughing 
gas, chloroform, or ether in the blood quickly deranges all our 
mental processes, and a slightly larger dose seems to arrest all 
mental activity and completely to abolish consciousness. In the 
case of alcohol, the steps by which the activity of the mind 
is arrested and consciousness abolished may be followed, the 
change being greater in proportion to the dose of the drug in- 
troduced into the blood, and, through it, into the brain-substance : 
the highest, most delicate functions seem to be first abolished, and 
then in turn the functions successively lower in the scale of 
complexity and delicacy ; until, when the dose is large enough, all 
the parts of the brain are paralysed, and consciousness seems as 
completely abolished as in chloroform narcosis. Various other 
drugs, such as Indian hemp and mescal, produce specific altera- 
tions of our mental processes, without arresting them. 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 115 

A copious stream of blood, rich in oxygen, is constantly- 
supplied to the brain during waking life ; the more active the 
mind at any moment, the more copious is the supply of blood 
pumped up to the brain, the more rapidly is oxygen taken up 
from the blood, and the more rapidly is the substance of the 
nervous tissues oxidised and consumed and cast out into the blood- 
stream, in the form of carbonic acid and other waste products of 
combustion. On the other hand, any checking of the stream of 
blood flowing through the vessels of the brain, or any diminution 
of the quantity of oxygen contained in it, produces at once some 
disturbance of mental process ; and a sudden stoppage of the 
supply of oxygen to the brain arrests almost instantaneously all 
mental process and abolishes consciousness — as we see in the 
case of the ordinary fainting caused by insufficiency of the heart's 
action. 

A mechanical shock or jar of the brain will also instantane- 
ously arrest all mental activity and abolish consciousness, if only 
it is sufficiently severe. 

Not least important among the facts of this order are those 
which indicate the dependence of memory upon the nervous 
system. A blow on the head seems in some cases to abolish 
throughout a period of minutes or hours all memory of experi- 
ences preceding the moment of the blow. Local lesions, i.e. 
injuries of small parts of the brain, seem in some cases to destroy 
memories of some one class, e.g. visual memories ; as we have 
noticed in discussing the localization of cerebral functions. 

The effectiveness with which we can commit any matter to 
memory varies greatly with the bodily state at the moment, with 
the degree of fatigue, the state of general bodily vigour and 
health, with youth and age. 

And, most significant of all perhaps, the minute study in 
recent years of the processes of mental association and reproduc- 
tion has shown that they obey laws which seem to be identical 
with those of the formation and operation of habits. Now, there 
is no room for doubt that the acquisition of a habit consists 
in the formation of material connexions between nervous elements 
and in the consolidation, improvement, or wearing smooth of such 
paths of communication between nerve cells, or, as it is commonly 
put, in the formation of paths of low resistance in the nervous 
system. 

All these facts, and many others of the same order, show 



ii6 BODY AND MIND 

that the continuance of our mental processes and consciousness, 
in the only form of which we have any positive knowledge, is 
intimately dependent upon the metabolism of the brain and upon 
the maintenance of certain very complex chemical conditions, 
conditions which cannot vary beyond very narrow limits without 
producing disorder or arrest of the brain's metabolism and, with it, 
of the stream of mental life. 

The Law of Psycho-neural Correlation or Concomitance. 

The physiological facts of the kind we have been considering 
are generally held, and with good reason, to justify the empirical 
generalization known as the law of psycho-neural concomitance, 
which runs as follows : — All mental process is accompanied by 
neural process in the brain, each thought or idea having its 
specific neural correlate, or, in the language of Huxley — every 
psychosis is definitely correlated with a net'trosis. 

The Composite Nature of the Mind. 

In former years, the proposition that the mind of each man 
is a unity was very generally accepted as a fundamental and 
unquestionable truth. But modern research has shaken very 
seriously even this inner stronghold of the castle of Animism. 

Biology has made clear that the human body is a vast and 
harmoniously cooperating aggregation of cells, each of which is 
in a sense a vital unit, which seems to have a life of its own, rela- 
tively independent of that of the rest of the body. Embryology 
has shown that this aggregation of cells is formed by the repeated 
division of a single parent-cell, the germ-cell, and the cohesion of 
the many cells thus formed. Now, the principle of continuity 
and the analogy presented by the unicellular animals, each of 
which divides repeatedly into two or more cells that lead inde- 
pendent lives, seem to compel us to suppose that the germ-cell 
has not only life but also mind, that it enjoys psychical life in 
however lowly a manner or degree, and that, on the division of 
the germ-cell, each of the cells derived from it has also its 
psychical capacities. This line of thought leads us inevitably to 
the view that the developed human being is, as it were, a vast 
colony of cells of more or less highly-specialized functions ; that 
in the cells constituting the nervous system the psychical functions 
are most highly developed and specialized ; and that the con- 



THE RISE OF THE MECHANISTIC PHYSIOLOGY 117 

sciousness of each man is in some sense the sum, or aggregation, 
or resultant, of the consciousnesses of the cells of his brain. This 
view of the composite nature of mind and consciousness, which 
has now gained very wide acceptance, seems to be borne out by 
two classes of very striking and curious facts. 

The facts of the one class are those established by the experi- 
mental division of lower animals ; their significance did not 
escape the observation of Aristotle, but they were first studied 
in detail in the eighteenth century by Charles Bonnett. 
Many of the lower animals, notably some of the segmented 
worms, may be divided by the knife into two or more 
portions, each of which continues to live and to manifest all the 
indications of psychical life proper to the species. In such cases 
we seem compelled to believe that, in dividing the body and 
nervous system, the knife divides also the psychical life of the 
creature ; if indeed the psychical life of the parts of the intact 
creature is integrated to a unitary consciousness. 

The reproduction or genesis of each human being takes place 
by a process of fission which is essentially analogous to such 
simple transection of an animal ; for the inception of the new 
individual is a budding off of the germ-cell from the mass of cells 
constituting the body of the parent, a cell which seems to carry 
with it the rudiment, or at least the potentiality, of the psychical 
life of the developed man. 

Consideration of these facts has led many competent thinkers ^ 
to assert that the consciousness of any man is composite, is a great 
stream formed by the flowing together of the many little streams 
of consciousness, the consciousnesses of the vital units of which his 
body or brain is composed ; ^ and they have not hesitated to assert 
that, if a man's brain could be mechanically divided into two parts 
(as by the transection of the coT-pus callosuvi) without arresting 
the life of the parts, the nervous activities of each part would be 
accompanied by its own stream of consciousness ; that, in fact, 
the condition or ground of the unity of personal consciousness is 
the material and functional connection between the cells of which 
the brain is composed. 

Secondly, since Fechner boldly propounded this view fifty 

^ Notably G. T. Fechner in the " Psycho-physik," and Von Hartmann in 
" The Philosophy of the Unconscious." 

^ This view is strictly in harmony with the widely accepted speculation of 
philosophers that an absolute mind or consciousness comprehends or includes 
the consciousness of all lesser minds. 



i ai t 'tta i'a ri ■ '■■ ■'■" ■" raiTar a i.. i r i M -Mt n ii t fffi ^'ite i TTr'rrgrr«i »iii[i --rT»ir i i; — r'^*™'ttri- 



Ii8 BODY AND MIND 

years ago, it has received very strong support from modern 
studies in mental pathology. Students of hysteria, of hyp- 
nosis, of trance, and of automatic speech and writing, medical 
psychologists of the school of Charcot and Janet, loudly proclaim 
that the doctrine of the unity of the individual consciousness is an 
exploded dogma, and that, even in the normal individual, many 
obscure currents of thought and consciousness flow on independ- 
ently beside or beneath the main stream ; and that this multiplicity 
of consciousness is but accentuated and brought more clearly to 
view in the abnormal states that they have studied with so much 
success.^ For these abnormal states, known as states of multiple 
personality, dual or divided consciousness, and so forth, seem to 
afford evidence of the existence of two or more streams of mental 
activity and consciousness associated with the processes of a single 
brain and body, the two streams of consciousness alternating with 
one another in time in cases of the commoner type, but seeming 
in rarer cases to run on contemporaneously and independently of 
one another. 

Now there is very good reason for believing that in all cases 
of these kinds, the kinds that are now commonly classed under 
the head of mental- dissociation, there obtains some degree of 
functional dissociation among the elements of the brain ; in fact, 
the evidence of such neural dissociation is much more clear and 
direct than the evidence for dual or multiple consciousness.^ It 
is, then, easy to see in these facts a confirmation of the view that 
such unity of consciousness as we normally enjoy is conditioned 
by the functional continuity of the elements of the brain ; for in 
these cases we seem to find that rupture of this neural continuity 
is accompanied by a rupture or division of consciousness, just such 
as, according to the view of Fechner and Von Hartmann, would 
result from division of the brain by the surgeon's knife. 

^ For an authoritative statement of this kind see an article by Prof. Th. 
Flournoy, " Esprits et Mediums," in the Bulletin de r InstitiU gMeral psychologique, 
1909, No. 3 : " En resume, au cours de ce dernier demi-siecle, les experiences 
d'hypnotisme, I'etude des alterations spontanees de la personnalite, et 1' observa- 
tion meme de nos proces psychologiques courants, ont revele dans I'ame humaine 
une complexite de nature, et des possibilites de dissociation interieure ou de 
polymorphisme, dont on ne se doubtait guere a I'epoque d'Allan Kardec, et 
qui ont totalement ruine I'axiome servant tacitement de pilier principal a sa 
theorie " (the axiom, namely, that the consciousness of the individual is unitary). 

2 The nature and production of such states of neural dissociation has been 
discussed by the author in a paper in Brain, vol. xxxi., " The State of the 
Brain during Hypnosis." 



CHAPTER IX 
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY 

WE have now reviewed the principal ways in which the 
development of our knowledge of the nervous system 
and its functions has contributed to the rejection of 
Animism, But the progress of other branches of biology has 
contributed powerfully towards the same result, especially the 
establishment of the doctrine of biological evolution through the 
influence of the ideas of Charles Darwin. 

The multitude of nice adaptations of animal structure and 
function to the situations and circumstances and needs of the 
animals had always been looked upon as evidence of the 
operation of a teleological factor in the determination of those 
structures and functions ; whether this factor was regarded as 
operating from outside to mould the development of the animals, 
or was identified, as by Lamarck, with the minds of the animals, 
with their intelligent psychical efforts to achieve their purposes and 
to adapt themselves more perfectly to their environment. Then, 
in the middle of the nineteenth century, just when the triumphs 
of physical science and the rapid progress of physiology were 
leading men to regard all animal growth and behaviour as 
capable of mechanical explanation, came the Darwinian hypothesis 
of the evolution of species and the adaptation of species to their 
environment by the blind mechanical operation of natural selection. 
Darwin himself retained the hypothesis of Lamarck and con- 
tinued to regard mind as a teleological factor in the evolutionary 
process. But to a great number, perhaps the majority, of 
biologists who came after Darwin, his hypothesis has seemed 
capable of explaining as mechanically engendered all instances 
of adaptation of structure and function ; and it is maintained 
by those who accept the view of this Neo-Darwinian school, of 
which Weismann is the leader, that the last ground for the 
recognition of any teleological factor in the biological realm has 
been washed away for ever by the Darwinian principles. 

, 119 



120 BODY AND MIND 

The modern doctrine of biological evolution contributes in a 
second way also to the abolition of Animism. It compels us to 
believe in the continuity of the evolution of the animal kingdom 
from the simplest to the most highly developed animal, namely 
man ; and it regards man's mental organization as having been 
continuously evolved from that of his animal ancestry, by 
means of the same processes of natural selection and in- 
heritance of chance variations that have produced his bodily 
organization. 

Now it is obvious that the acceptance of this view raises 
new difficulties for any animistic doctrine. If man has a 
soul, what is its relation to the souls of animals ? If it is of an 
altogether different order from these, at what point in the scale 
of evolution did the human soul replace the animal soul ? and so 
on and so on. The doctrine of the continuity of the evolution 
of man's mental powers from those of his animal ancestry forbids 
us to accept Descartes' easy way of escape from these difficult 
problems, namely, the denial of all psychical life to the animals. 
But in addition to the raising of these unanswerable conundrums, 
the doctrine of the continuity of evolution seems to make against 
Animism in yet another way. It is said that the principles of 
continuity and of economy justify us in regarding the world of 
living things as having been gradually evolved from inanimate 
or non-living matter,^ and that the rejection of this view involves 
the assumption of a miraculous interference with the course of 
nature for the first production of living organisms. And it is held 
that the successes of modern chemistry in analyzing the substance 
of living matter and in synthesizing complex organic molecules 
from the chemical elements justify us in believing that living 
matter will one day, perhaps at no distant date, be synthesized 
in the laboratory. If, then, such continuity of evolution of the 
organic world of living things from the inorganic world is 
established, it justifies the belief that all organic processes, in- 
cluding those of the human brain, are determined according to 
the laws of mechanism to which all inorganic matter has been 
proved by exact experiment to conform ; for we cannot suppose 
that the mere aggregation of the chemical elements in the more 
complex molecules of organic matter removes them in any 
degree from the sway of those laws. Hence there is no room 

^ Prof. Lloyd Morgan is one of those who have laid great stress upon this 
argument : see his " Introduction to Comparative Psychology." 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE DARWINIAN THEORY 121 

for psychical guidance among the strictly mechanical processes of 
human brains. 

The evolutionary speculations of Herbert Spencer must also 
be mentioned here as having played a considerable part in 
establishing " the psychology without a soul." For in his 
*' Principles of Psychology " (the first edition of which preceded 
by a few years the " Origin of Species ") Spencer applied the 
physiological principles of the association-psychology to explain 
not only the development of the individual mind, but also the 
evolution of the mental powers of the race ; claiming to show how 
all the powers of the human mind have been built up by the 
transmission and accumulation from generation to generation of 
the experience of each, embodied in the form of associated groups 
of nervous elements. And these speculations met with very 
general approval and exerted a widespread influence. 

Thus, just ten years after physical science had launched its 
heaviest bolt against Animism, in the shape of the law of con- 
servation of energy, the Darwinian theory seemed to undermine 
its last prop. To the scientific world in general it seemed that 
Animism was forever dead; and when, in the year 1874, 
Prof Tyndall gave to his presidential address before the British 
Association the double character of an inquest into the death of 
Animism and a funeral oration over its corpse, the mind of the 
cultured public was well prepared to bid it a regretful farewell. 
We have it on the authority of a leading newspaper of that 
date/ that " The Address has been received with a unanimity of 
commendation that has fairly bewildered those who make it a 
business to study the drifts and currents of public sentiment." 

^ The New York Tribune. 



CHAPTER X 

CURRENT PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST 

ANIMISM 

BESIDE the weighty arguments against Animism provided 
by the results of modern physical and biological research, 
other arguments of a metaphysical or epistemological 
character, which have long been current, have been presented 
again and again with great force and liveliness, and still carry 
great weight with many minds. 

Of these, one of the most widely influential is still undoubtedly 
the objection raised by the Occasionalists to Descartes' teaching. 
It is inconceivable, it is said, and therefore impossible, that things 
so utterly unlike as body and soul should act upon one another, 
that the immaterial, inextended soul or thinking substance postu- 
lated by Descartes should be capable either of acting upon, or 
of being acted upon by, the material extended substance of the 
brain. The development of physical science with its more 
exact notions of physical causation has strengthened the appeal 
of this argument ; it is therefore still much relied upon, and has 
been stated again and again in recent years and given a variety 
of slightly different forms. To all those who accept the scheme 
of kinetic mechanism as a literal description of the constitution 
of the physical world, it is most effective when stated in the form 
that we cannot conceive how consciousness can affect the move- 
ments of molecules.^ One of the best known and authoritative 
statements of it is that contained in the late Prof Tyndall's 
famous Belfast address ; others were cited in Chapter VIL 

Some philosophers prefer to give to this argument a logical 
flavour. They say that all our conceptions of physical pheno- 
mena are built up on the mechanical type, all involve the 
notions of extension, of position and of changes of position in 
space ; that we can only conceive of physical processes in this 
way ; and that to regard psychical agencies as affecting physical 

^ See the passage quoted on p. 93 from Romanes' Rede Lecture. 
122 



PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 125. 

processes is to attempt to combine two systems of ideas that 
have no relation to one another ; that, in short, any such attempt 
is illegitimate, because the two systems of conceptions have been 
evolved for dealing with different aspects of experience. 

Dr Stout has presented this argument in a way which combines 
these two rather different formulations of it, without implying the 
acceptance of the scheme of kinetic mechanism. " The main 
objection to this view (interaction of soul and body) is that the 
kind of interaction presupposed is utterly incongruous with the 
conception of causation on which the whole system of our know- 
ledge both of physical and psychical process is based. It is the 
function of science to explain how events take place, or, in other 
words, to make their occurrence intelligible ; but this is only 
possible in so far as we can discover such a connection between 
cause and effect as will enable us to understand how the effect 
follows from the cause ; or, in other words, we must exhibit cause 
and effect as parts of one and the same continuous process. To 
explain is to exhibit a fact as the resultant of its factors. This 
is the ideal of science, and it is never completely attained. But 
in so far as it is unattained, our knowledge is felt to be incom- 
plete. Now when we come to the direct connection between a 
nervous process and a correlated conscious process, we find a 
complete solution of continuity. The two processes have no 
common factor. Their connection lies entirely outside of our 
total knowledge of physical nature on the one hand, and of 
conscious process on the other." ^ 

These may be said to be the modern attenuated forms 
of Kant's epistemological dictum that all processes of the 
phenomenal world must be conceived as the movements of 
bodies and be regarded as strictly subject to mechanical law. 

A thoroughly metaphysical objection to the soul is the 
following : — We have no immediate experience of the soul ; the 
conception is reached by inference only ; therefore it is bad meta- 
physics to assign a higher or greater reality to the soul than to con- 
sciousness ; for of the latter we have immediate knowledge. Pro- 
fessor Strong, who makes much of this objection in his discussion 
of the question,- supports it with closely allied arguments, which 

^ " Manual of Psychology," chap. iii. 

2 In his book, " Why the Mind has a Body," a lucid and forcible presentation 
of the argument for the position designated on a later page (chap, xi.) PsychicaL 
Monism. 



124 BODY AND MIND 

may best be given in his own words. " But the hypothesis of a 
soul involves a second difficulty equally great, in regard to the 
nature to be ascribed to it if assumed. What could the soul 
itself, apart from consciousness, be like ? It has been carefully 
-distinguished from and opposed to consciousness, therefore it 
cannot have the latter's luminous nature. We are forced to 
conceive it as a dark and mysterious source from which conscious- 
ness in some unintelligible manner flows. Insensibly we are 
drawn to picture it by the aid of that illegitimate notion of 
matter existing with all its materiality apart from consciousness, 
— in short, as a mind-atom. But, no matter how carefully we 
define it as immaterial, since we contrast it in nature with 
consciousness, the origin of the latter out of it is as irrational, 
as much " the birth of a new nature," as its origin out of matter. 
Thus the nature of the Soul in itself is as unassignable as our 
knowledge of it is inexplicable." Other writers who urge this 
argument hide its purely metaphysical, nature under the disguise 
of an argumentuni ad hoinineni ; they say that to posit a soul is 
but a disguised Materialism ; they assert that, describe it how we 
may, the soul remains essentially of the same nature as our naive 
conception of matter, that the two conceptions arose from, and 
owe their survival to, the same weakness of the human intellect. 
Professor Strong goes on to say — " Finally the phenomena- 
transcending assumption that occasions these difficulties is 
irreconcilable with the fact that our existence is something of 
which we are immediately aware. For the existence of conscious- 
ness is our existence. If the Soul should continue but conscious- 
ness cease, we should be as good as non-existent ; whereas, if 
the Soul should be annihilated but consciousness still go on, 
we should exist as truly as now. Thus our existence is bound 
up with that of consciousness, not with that of the Soul ; or, 
as I said before, the existence of consciousness is our existence." ^ 
It only remains to point out that the almost universal re- 
jection of Animism by the learned world of our time is due 
not merely to the force of the arguments provided by the 
physical and biological sciences, nor to the reasonings of 
epistemologists and metaphysicians, but to the co-operation of 
these influences. In earlier ages the materialistic tendencies 
of science and the spiritualistic affirmations of philosophy had 
generally arrayed the men of science and the philosophers 
^ Op. cit. pp. 199 and 200. 



PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 125 

in hostile parties, the opposition between which reached its 
cHmax towards the close of the eighteenth century. Then 
came Kant, who taught the philosophers that they might accept 
the materialistic conclusions of science without giving up all 
that they held most dear ; and the men of science, on the 
other hand, mollified by these great concessions to their claims, 
and finding their most cherished tenets no longer imperilled 
by the prepossessions of the philosophers, have sought to make 
what concessions seemed possible, and have found that an agnostic 
or neutral Monism is at once more defensible and more 
respectable than the crude Materialism of their predecessors. 
Hence, in the course of the nineteenth century, these parties have 
drawn closer together ; until now they are united in a common 
opposition to Animism under the twin banners of Monism and 
Idealism, each confirmed in its opposition to Animism by the 
knowledge that it can claim the support of its powerful 
ally. 

In this process of reconcilement of science and philosophy 
at the cost of Animism, which only in recent years has made 
rapid progress, a great part has been played by the exposition of 
a variety of solutions of the pyscho-physical problem ; the essen- 
tial features common to all these are the denial of all psycho- 
physical interaction, and the insistence that all the processes of the 
organic world (including all the behaviour of men and animals) 
are capable in principle of being fully explained in mechanical 
terms. They may therefore be classed together under the head 
of automaton theories ; though the clumsy expression, anti- 
animistic theories, would bring out more clearly their common 
opposition to Animism. In the following chapter I propose ta 
describe the varieties of the automaton theory most widely 
accepted at the present time. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 

OF the many authors who have adopted and presented an 
anti-animistic solution of the psycho-physical problem, 
each has given to his doctrine some peculiar turn and 
flavour.^ 

The formulations range from the crudest materialism on the one 
hand to the grossest subjective idealism on the other, and not a 
few authors oscillate uncertainly between these two extreme 
varieties of Monism. 

These many formulations fall into four groups, although of 
some of them it is difficult to say to which group they properly 
belong, I adopt the plan of describing the type formulation of 
each of these four groups. The first, generally known as Epi- 
pTienomenalism, is the modern representative of Materialism. The 
others are often loosely classed together under the title, theories 
oi psycho-physical Parallelism, and many writers signify in general 
terms their adhesion to " the theory of psycho-physical parallelism," 
without specifying which of its three distinct forms they approve, 
and, it may be suspected, without distinguishing between them in 
their own minds. 

Epiphenomenalisin 

The simplest formulation of the monistic view is of course the 
materialistic. Perhaps no reputable writer of the present time 
formulates Materialism so crudely as some of the older writers. 
Since Hobbes asserted that sensation is nothing but motion, the 
statement of the materialistic creed has undergone considerable 
refinement. Even the dictum of Cabanis, that the brain secretes 
thought as the liver secretes bile, marked a considerable refine- 
ment ; and a further refinement is implied by the formula that 

^ It is surprising and amusing to anyone who forages among the literature 
■of this subject to find that so many authors have put forward one or other of 
these allied doctrines, claiming it in all good faith as an original discovery. 
126 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 127 

consciousness is a function of the brain. But the modern mate- 
rialist refines still further upon his predecessors. He will not 
commit himself to the statement that the brain secretes con- 
sciousness or thought, and he hesitates to say that the processes 
of the brain are the cause of sensation or of consciousness of any- 
kind ; he prefers to say that the stream of consciousness accom- 
panies the flow of brain-processes, each detail of the stream of 
consciousness being dependent upon some specific feature or detail 
of the total brain-process with which it coincides, or to which it 
immediately succeeds, in time. Huxley did more than anyone 
else to define and to give currency to this formulation, and to 
him it owes the name by which it is generally known ; for he it 
was who suggested that the stream of consciousness should be 
called epiphenomenal, or the epiphenomenon of the brain-process.^ 
Now, though some of those who have adopted this view are shy 
of using the word cause in this connexion, and especially of 
describing the relation of consciousness to brain-process as one of 
casual dependence, yet others are less reticent ; and it cannot be 
denied that the doctrine of Epiphenomenalism as widely enter- 
tained by scientific men does imply this casual dependence. The 
doctrine may, then, be stated succinctly in the form of the follow- 
ing propositions: — (i) The universe is a system of forces, or of 
matter and energy, in which every event or process is completely 
determined or caused by antecedent physical process accord- 
ing to the laws of mechanism (the bodies and brains of all 
organisms, including those of men not excepted). (2) Certain 
complex physico-chemical processes, taking place in those very 
highly specialized collocations of matter which we call brains, 
produce or cause (in their own right, as it were) all that we call 
consciousness, all sensation and imagery, all feeling, emotion, 
thought and sense of effort, or other mode of consciousness ; 
that is to say, every feature or element of the content of the 
consciousness of any organism is caused by some immediately 
preceding physical or chemical change occurring in the brain of 
that organism, and all that we call psychical process is merely the 
successive and momentary appearance of new elements in the 
stream of consciousness, each new element being called into 
existence by a corresponding process in the brain, and ceasing to 
exist when that process comes to an end. 

^Dr Shadworth Hodgson is perhaps the most thorough and consistent 
exponent of this view among contemporary writers. 



128 BODY AND MIND 

According to this doctrine, then, there is no true psychical 
activity ; all psychical existence is consciousness only, and con- 
sciousness consists of a stream of fragments or elements of 
consciousness, appearing simultaneously or successively, merely 
subsisting for a moment and then disappearing, without in any 
way influencing one another and without reacting in any way 
upon the brain-processes by which they are produced ; the causal 
sequence and all true activity and effectiveness belong to the 
brain-processes. The relation of consciousness is one of 
dependence without reciprocity of influence. The consciousness 
of any moment is a passive conjunction of " epiphenomenal " 
elements. Huxley and others have illustrated this doctrine by 
likening this stream of epiphenomenal elements to the shadows 
cast by the moving parts of a machine, or to the noise fortuitously 
produced by them — the creaking of the wheels. Perhaps a better 
simile would be the electrical disturbances that always are 
incidental to the strains and frictions of the working of a 
machine, 

Epiphenomenalism may be illustrated and fixed in the mind 
by help of the diagram (Fig. i ), 




Fig. I. 
or, less inadequately but less simply, by the second diagram (Fig. 2). 




Fig. 2. 

fn these, as in the following diagrams, physical processes of 
the brain are indicated by the black discs below ; the circles above 
stand for elements of the stream of consciousness ; causal links 
are indicated by the lines, and the time-direction by the arrow- 
heads. The diagram thus indicates the causal network con- 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 129 

necting the physical processes of the brain, and the causal de- 
pendence of each element of consciousness upon some one of the 
brain-processes. 

This doctrine is very widely held among men of science at 
the present time, especially perhaps among the physiologists ; for 
the facts with which they are most familiar, those which 
seem to indicate the dependence of all mental process upon the 
material brain-processes, are those which incline the mind most 
strongly towards this view. Although this doctrine escapes some 
of the most obvious crudities of the older Materialism, it must be 
classed as materialistic ; for it gives the primacy to matter. 
Material collocations and their forces are held to be the real and 
effective agents in the production of all change and process. 
The material universe is held to have existed throughout an 
indefinitely long*time, and to have undergone an immensely 
prolonged evolutionary process of a purely mechanical nature, as 
described by Herbert Spencer ; which process has resulted at a 
certain point of time in the production of living organisms, through 
the increasing complexity of the atomic structure of certain 
molecules. In these organisms further evolution of the same 
kind has resulted in a further increase of complexity of atomic 
structure and molecular arrangement ; until, when the brains of 
some organisms attained a certain degree of this complexity 
of atomic and molecular structure, their physico-chemical 
processes began to be accompanied by consciousness. Con- 
sciousness, or mind, was thus called into being for the first 
time in the history of the universe ; which consciousness continued 
to increase in complexity as brains grew larger and more complex 
and more highly integrated, and has attained its greatest richness 
and complexity in the case of the large and very complex brain 
of the human species. It is further implied that, if and when 
these very highly specialized collocations of matter which we call 
brains shall cease to exist, all mind and consciousness will dis- 
appear from the universe. 

The material universe is thus regarded as rolling on through 
the ages according to eternally fixed mechanical principles, and 
as producing now and again, on one or more of the stellar bodies 
on which brains happen to be evolved, little flecks of consciousness, 
which flash out like sparks of light, flicker for a moment and dis- 
appear, coming and going without affecting in the slightest degree ' 
the secular evolution and dissolution of material systems. 

9 



130 BODY AND MIND 

There are no special arguments advanced in favour of this 
view, beyond all those objections to Animism which we have noticed. 
It is the only alternative to Animism open to the crude realist, who 
believes the physical world to consist of matter such as we perceive 
or as physical science describes. 

An interesting variation of this doctrine has been proposed a few 
years ago by Professor W. Ostwald/ who claims that his suggested 
modification would remove it from the category of Materialism. 
The suggestion is bound up with his attempt to show that the 
conception of matter is a false and improper, because useless, 
hypothesis, and that we may profitably do away with it altogether 
and replace it by the conception of energy. Energy, according to 
this doctrine of " Energetics," is the only enduring reality ; it is 
capable of assuming, or transforming itself into, many different 
modes or species ; and of these species consciousness or psychical 
energy is one among the rest. All mental process is thus con- 
ceived as the interplay of psychical energy with other species of 
energy. It seems possible that this suggestion might be developed 
in a way not inconsistent with Animism ; ^ but as presented by 
its author it would seem to be very closely allied to Epi- 
phenomenalism. It may be illustrated by developing the simile 
in which we likened the consciousness that accompanies the brain- 
processes to the electrical disturbances that accompany the strains 
and frictions incidental to the working of a machine. Just as 
man-made machines continued through long ages to develop 
incidentally feeble electrical disturbances which played no effective 
part, so through long ages natural mechanisms developed inci- 
dentally feeble psychical energies which played no effective part. 
And, just as man evolved machines (namely dynamos) in which, 
by the special arrangement of the parts, the electrical energy 
generated became much greater in quantity and was given an 
essential and dominant role in the working of the system, so 
certain natural mechanisms (namely organisms), through the 
evolution of brains, became capable of generating psychical 
energy in larger quantity, which energy, with each further 
evolution of the brain, has played a more important part in 
the working of the whole organism. 

^ " Vorlesungen iiber Naturphilosophie," Leipzig, 1902. 

2 This development (if I rightly comprehend them) seems to be attempted 
by several Russian authors, especially Grot, Krainsky, and Bechterew. (See 
"'Psyche und Leben," W. Bechterew, Wiesbaden, 1901.) 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 131 

Psycho-physical Parallelism 

The expression, psycho-physical parallelism, is conveniently 
used in a loose way to denote all the doctrines that deny psycho- 
physical interaction, but in this section I am concerned only with 
that one to which in strictness the designation should be confined. 

According to this view physical and psychical processes are 
equally real ; but there is no causal relation between psychical 
and physical processes ; the two series of events, the psychical 
processes of any mind and the physical processes of the brain 
with which they are associated, merely accompany one another 
in time ; their relation is one of simple concomitance only ; the 
two series of events merely run parallel to one another in time, 
as two railway trains running side by side on a double track, or 
two rays of light projected towards the same infinitely distant 
point, run parallel with one another in time and space. Within 
each series the law of causation holds good, the successive steps 
being related to the preceding and succeeding steps as effects and 



-> o- 



-^ 



Fig. 3. 

causes ; but no causal links stretch across from one series to the 
other. The diagrams illustrate this view, the one (Fig. 3) in the 



->■ 



Fig. 4. 

simplest possible manner, the other (Fig. 4) rather less inadequately. 
In the latter figure the clear circles are supposed to lie in one 
plane at right angles to the plane of the paper, the black circles 
in another. 

This doctrine is held in either of two forms, restricted or 
universal parallelism. In the former case, brain-processes alone 



132 BODY AND MIND 

of all physical processes are supposed to be accompanied by- 
psychical events corresponding to them point for point in this 
mysterious fashion. In tlie latter case it is assumed that all physical 
processes alike, those of the inorganic realm no less than those of 
brains, have their psychical concomitants. This doctrine of par- 
allelism without interaction was, as we have seen, suggested by. 
Leibnitz ; but it may be and is held without accepting the doctrine 
oTf" pre-established harmony by means of which Leibnitz sought 
to make it intelligible. It may be, and in fact usually is, held 
only as a working hypothesis or as a heuristic principle making 
no claim to metaphysical validity. 

Those who are not content with the bare affirmation of 
temporal concomitance of brain-process and consciousness, and 
who, while denying all 'psycho-physical interaction, seek to make 
their relation intelligible, find themselves compelled to ad,opt the 
doctrine of the identity of mind and body in one or other of the 
two forms in which it is current. Both of these necessarily claim 
to embody metaphysical or ontological truth, i.e. to give us some 
account of the nature of real being, or at least to make certain 
assertions in regard to it. 

Phenome7talistic Parallelism (yIdentity-Hypothesis A) 

Under this heading we may put together the closely allied 
formulations of the psycho-physical relation suggested by 
Spinoza and by Kant respectively ; for both regarded mind and 
body as but two aspects of one reality ; Spinoza's doctrine is more 
properly called " the two-aspect view " ; Kant's, " phenomenalistic 
parallelism." The diagram (Fig. 5) may serve to illustrate both 




Fig. 5. 

varieties. As the diagram implies, the causal links belong wholly 
to the unknown series of real processes which appear to us under 
the two aspects, the physical and the psychical, although both' 
series of appearances will seem to be causally linked, just as one 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 133 

shadow may seem to draw another shadow after it. This form 
of the identity-hypothesis thus impHes the metaphysical doctrine 
known as realistic Monism. It asserts Cliat reality or real being, 
of which mind and body are appearances only, is not immediately 
given to or known by us. This underlying reality may be 
regarded as an unknown and unknowable X, This was the 
teaching of Herbert Spencer, as also of Kant, who declared that it 
is " weder Materie noch ein denkend Wesen." ^ But those who, on 
other grounds, adopt a pantheistic metaphysic will naturally follow 
Spinoza in affirming that this real being is God. 

Psychical Monism {Idcntity-HypotJiesis i>) 

The alternative formulation of the identity-hypothesis runs as 
follows : — Consciousness is the only reality, and the consciousness 
of each of us partakes of this real nature ; all that each man calls 
matter or the physical world is but the form under which con- 
sciousness other than his own is manifested to him, so that, if I 
could observe the processes of your brain while you are thinking, 
I should be observing the phenomenal manifestation of your 
consciousness. According to this doctrine, then, the causal 
efficiency is wholly confined to the psychical series ; and matter 
and its processes (all that we call the physical world or Nature) 
are but, as it were, the shadows thrown by thought. It is thus the 
converse of Epiphenomenalism, which regards thought as the shadow 
thrown by matter. It may be illustrated by the diagram (Fig. 6). 




Fig. 6. 

This form of the identity-hypothesis implies a metaphysical 
doctrine which is usually designated idealistic Monism, but is 
better described as realistic or objective psychical Monism. It 
must not be confused with subjective Idealism or Solipsism ; this 
also is a psychical Monism, for it maintains that my thought or 
consciousness alone exists. But, while the latter denies the exist-<«k 
ence of the physical world and of other minds than my own 
(except as ideas of my own mind), the former maintains the 

1 See p. 77. ' v.,' 



134 BODY AND MIND 

objective existence both of the things which appear to me as 
composing the physical world and of other minds like my own, 
while holding that they are all of the same nature, namely 
consciousness. It will be convenient to designate it simply 
" Psychical Monism." A diagram illustrating Solipsism on the 
plan of the foregoing diagrams may help to make clear the 
difference between these two forms of psychical Monism. It 
would take the form of figure 7, though the links joining the 



Fig. 7. 

circles would not stand for causal links, since Solipsism necessarily 
denies validity to the principle of causation. 

In order to complete the series of diagrams illustrating the 
various psycho-physical doctrines which reject Animism, I add 



Fig. 8. 

figure 8 ; this may stand for the crude Materialism which asserts 
that consciousness is matter or the movement of matter. 

Of all the anti-animistic answers to the psycho-physical problem 
this second form of the identity-hypothesis is the one which is 
most widely accepted at the present time and which has been the 
most thoroughly elaborated. It is therefore important that it 
should be clearly grasped, and I restate it in the words of the late 
Professor Paulsen, one of its most enlightened and thorough- 
going advocates of recent years. " AUe korperliche Wirklichkeit 
ist durchaus und iiberall Hinweisung auf eine Innenwelt, die der 
verwandt ist, die wir in uns selber erleben. Und allerdings 
werden wir nun sagen : in der Innenwelt, die uns freilich nur an 
einem Punkt unmittelbar gegeben ist, im Selbstbewusstsein, 
dariiber hinaus erreichen wir sie nur durch stets unsichere 
Interpretation und jenseits der Tierwelt nur durch schematisierende 
Konstruktion, und durch idealisirende Symbolik; in der Innenwelt 
offenbart sich die Natur des Wirklichen, wie es an und fur sich 
ist : die Korperwelt ist im Grunde nur eine zufallige Ansicht, eine 
unadaquate Darstellung der Wirklichkeit in unserer Sinnlichkeit." ^ 
And again, " Das Dasein der Seele besteht in ihrem Leben, in der 
1 " Einleitung in die Philosophic," p. 126, twelfth edition, 1904. 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 135 

Einheit aufeinander bezogener pychischer Vorgange ; nehmen 
wir diese weg, so bleibt kein Ruckstand, Bewusstseinsvorgange sind 
das an und fiir sich Wirkliche, sie bedlirfen nicht eines anderen, 
eines Seelensubstantiale, das ihnen erst zur Wirklichkeit helfen 
oder sie in der Wirklichkeit halten und tragen miisste ; so etwas 
gibt es iiberhaupt nicht." ^ " Seele ist die auf nicht weiter sagbare 
Weise zur Einheit verbundene Vielheit innerer Erlebnisse." This 
is the conception of " the actual soul " which we are told on all 
hands must replace that of " the substantial soul." ^ 

More recently, Prof, C. A. Strong, in a book bearing the 
significant title " Why the Mind has a Body," has presented this 
form of the identity-hypothesis and the metaphysical argument 
for it with admirable force and clearness. He demands that 
metaphysic should give some clear account of the nature of the 
realities it recognizes ; and defining a reality as " something that 
exists of itself and in its own right, and not merely as a modifica- 
tion of something else," he maintains that consciousness, the only 
mode of being of which we have immediate knowledge, has the 
best possible claim to be regarded as real being or reality.^ Then, 
having demonstrated the necessity of the assumption of things- 
in-themselves, of which physical objects are the phenomena 
or appearances to us ; he asks — Why should we postulate 
two modes of real being, namely these things-in-themselves and 
consciousness ? Why not make the simplest possible assumption 
and regard them as identical ? " No solution of the problem, in 
fact, could be simpler or more economical. We have two things, 
the brain-process and consciousness, and the question is as to 
their relation. The brain-process is a phenomenon, and every 
phenomenon symbolizes a reality, and consciousness is a reality. 
Therefore, conclude the psycho-physical materialists and monists 
(i.e. those who accept Epiphenomenalism or identity-hypothesis A), 
the brain-process symbolizes a reality of which consciousness is 
the manifestation or on which it is dependent. They actually 
go out of their way to avoid the solution ! For, if the reality 
symbolized by the brain-process is distinct from consciousness, 
then the two are loosely and externally attached as we commonly 
conceive brain and mind to be attached, and the problem is 
simply transferred to another sphere and perpetuated. Whereas, 

1 Op. cit., p. 384. 

^ " Aktualitatsbegriff der Seele," or "Die aktuelle Seele," in the language 
of Wundt. 3 p_ jp4_ 



136 BODY AND MIND 

if the reality symbolized by the brain-process is consciousness 
itself, their connexion is explained and the problem solved. 
Indeed, this is the only conceivable solution of a problem which 
all other hypotheses necessarily perpetuate. On every other 
hypothesis, the duality of mind and body is either a duality of 
existences or a duality of disparate phenomena ; in either case 
their connexion is a new fact, not provided for in their nature, 
and consequently inexplicable. On this hypothesis, the duality 
is that of a reality and its phenomenon ; this, for believers in 
things-in-themselves, is a ver-a relatio, and the connexion is 
therefore explained by being subsumed under the relation of 
phenomenon and thing-in-itself." ^ 

Professor Strong supports this metaphysical argument for 
this form of the monistic doctrine as follows : we have an 
ineradicable conviction that our consciousness is a real factor in 
the course of things, and a review of the evolution of mind in 
the animal world justifies this conviction of the efficiency of con- 
sciousness. Now Psychical Monism (the identity-hypothesis B) 
does no violence to this well-based belief ; for in a world where all 
is consciousness and all causal action is of consciousness on con- 
sciousness, our own consciousness finds a natural sphere of 
influence. The other monistic doctrines on the other hand 
ask us to reject as a delusion our belief in the effective agency 
of our consciousness. 

Among the clearest statements of this doctrine is that of the 
late Prof W. K. Clifford in his essay entitled " On the Nature of 
Things-in-themselves." ^ He asserted that " consciousness is made 
up of elementary feelings grouped together in various ways " ; 
that " the elementary feeling is a thing-in-itself " ; that " conscious- 
ness is a complex of ejective facts, — of elementary feelings, or 
rather of those remoter elements which cannot even be felt, but 
of which the simplest feeling is built up " ; and, proposing to give 
to these remoter elements of which the simplest feeling is built 
up the name mind-stuff, he asserted that " mind-stuff is the reality 
which we perceive as matter " and that " the universe consists 
entirely of mind-stuff." He wrote further that " a moving molecule 
of inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness, but 
it possesses a small piece of mind-stuff" This should have run — 
the molecule, or what we conceive as a molecule, is a small piece of 

^ " Why the Mind has a Body," chap. xv. 
^ " Lectures and Essays," vol. ii. 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 137 

mind-stuff. Lastly it must be noted that with complete consistency 
Clifford asserted that these eject-elements, these small pieces of 
mind-stuff " are connected together in their sequence and co- 
existence by counterparts of the physical laws of matter " ; that 
is to say, what we call laws of matter are the laws of mind-stuff. 

Clifford ascribed the first distinct enunciation of this doctrine 
to Prof VVundt, but it appears in the v/ritings of Wundt's master, 
G. T. Fechner. We owe to him, I believe, the first statement and 
the most elaborate defence of it. 

The language in which Fechner sets forth his view is not 
always strictly consistent ; it seems sometimes to imply psycho- 
physical parallelism in the strict sense defined on page 131, some- 
times the first, and sometimes the second, form of the identity- 
hypothesis ; and it may be doubted whether he always dis- 
tinguished clearly between these three formulations. But, as 
it was Fechner who, by the publication of his celebrated 
treatise " Elemente der Psycho-physik," ^ brought the identity- 
hypothesis into fashion in the scientific world, I quote from 
that work the following passage in which he illustrates his view. 
" When anyone stands inside a sphere ^ its convex side is for 
him quite hidden by the concave surface ; conversely, when 
he stands outside, the concave surface is hidden by the convex. 
Both sides belong together as inseparably as the psychical and 
the bodily sides of a human being, and these also may by way of 
simile ivergleichsweise) be regarded as inner and outer sides ; but 
it is just as impossible to see both sides of a circle from a stand- 
point in the plane of the circle, as to see these two sides of 
humanity from a standpoint in the plane of human existence." ^ 

Again, he wrote——" The solar system seen from the sun 
presents an aspect quite other than that which it presents when 
viewed from the earth. There it appears as the Copernican, here 
as the Ptolemaic world-system. And for all time it will remain 
impossible for one observer to see both systems at the same time, 
although both belong inseparably together, and, just like the 
concave and the convex sides of a circle, they are at bottom only 
two different modes of appearance of the same thing seen from 
different standpoints ; " * and yet again — " What appears to you, 

^ Leipsic, i860. 

^ The word used is Kreis, but a'sphere seems to be implied by the first sentence. 

'^ " Elemente der Psycho-physik," vol. i., Introduction.', 

^ Loc, cit. 



138 BODY AND MIND 

who yourself are spirit, when at the inner standpoint as spirit^ 
appears from the outer standpoint as the bodily substratum of 
this spirit."^ 

The first and second passages may seem to imply phen- 
omenalistic Parallelism (identity-hypothesis A) ; the last, on the 
other hand, would rather imply Psychical Monism (identity- 
hypothesis B) ; and the passage following upon the last sentence 
makes it clear that this was the view Fechner adopted and 
defended with such admirable industry and ingenuity. It runs — - 
" The difference of standpoint is whether one thinks with one's 
brain or looks into the brain of another thinker. The appearances 
are then quite different ; but the standpoints are very different,, 
there an inner, here an outer standpoint ; and they are indescrib- 
ably more different than in the foregoing example (i.e. the circle 
and the solar system), and just for that reason the difference of 
the modes of appearance is indescribably greater. For the 
double mode of appearance of the circle, or of the solar system, 
is after all only obtained from two different outer standpoints 
over against it ; at the centre of the circle, or on the sun, the 
observer remains outside the line of the circle, or outside the 
planets. But the appearance of the spirit to itself is obtained 
from a truly inner standpoint of that underlying being over against 
itself, namely the standpoint of coincidence with itself, while the 
appearance of the bodily self is obtained from a standpoint truly 
external to it, namely, one which does not coincide with it." ^ 

" Therefore no spirit perceives immediately another spirit^ 
although one might suppose that it should most easily apprehend a 
being of like nature with itself ; it perceives, in so far as the other 
does not coincide with it, only the bodily appearance of that 
other. Therefore no spirit can in any way become aware of 
another save by the aid of its corporeality ; for what of the spirit 
appears outwardly is just its bodily mode of appearance." ^ 

Fechner worked for the establishment of his view along two 
very different lines. On the one hand he sought an exact 
empirical foundation for it by means of laborious psycho- physical 
experiment, on the other, he appealed to the aesthetic side of 
human nature. We may briefly notice these two main lines of 
his argument. Fechner's view necessarily involves the assumption 
that all the objects and events composing the physical world are^ 
like the processes of the cortex of our brains, the outward 
^ Loc. cit. ^ Loc. cit. ^ Loc. cit. 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 139 

appearances of what is really consciousness or consciousnesses. 
For to set certain of the processes of the brain apart from all 
other physical processes, attributing to them alone this peculiar 
relation to consciousness, would be but to deepen the mystery of 
the psycho-physical relation. Fechner, far from shrinking from 
this necessary implication, revelled in it ; and his two chief lines 
of endeavour were, on the one hand to provide some empirical 
evidence of the psychical nature of all that we call physical pro- 
cesses, and on the other to show how pleasing and inspiring the 
world becomes when thus regarded. 

The former line he pursued in the following way. His friend, 
E.. H. Weber, had formulated on the basis of experiment the 
empirical generalization know as Weber's law. This law may be 
briefly expounded as follows : the application of a physical 
stimulus to a sense-organ evokes a sensation of a certain intensity ; 
and, if a second stimulus of greater intensity is then applied, the 
subject experiences a sensation of greater intensity, provided the 
increase of the stimulus is not too small. Now it is possible to 
determine with some exactitude the least increment of stimulus- 
intensity which will suffice to evoke a sensation just perceptibly 
more intense than that evoked by the weaker stimulus. Weber's 
experiments showed that, in the case of several of the senses, the 
amount by which the intensity of a stimulus must be increased in 
order to evoke such a just perceptibly more intense sensation is 
not a constant quantity, but that it varies with the intensity of the 
stimulus, being always a certain fraction of the total value of the 
stimulus ; for example, in the case of vision, the intensity of the 
light stimulating the retina must be increased by about one per 
cent, of its total value, in order to evoke a just perceptibly more 
intense sensation. 

Fechner saw in this generalization the indication of a definite 
mathematical relation between physical and psychical magnitudes,, 
between the magnitude of a sensation and that of its phenomenon^ 
the brain-process. He first strove to render the empirical basis 
of this generalization more exact and to explain away the 
apparent exceptions to it ; and then he sought to deduce from 
it a more definite mathematical statement of the relation. 

The gist of his argument was this : Just perceptible 
increments of sensation-intensity are equal increments ; therefore 
we may state Weber's law more generally thus — Equal increments 
of sensation-intensity are determined by increments of stimulus- 



140 



BODY AND MIND 



intensity whose value is in each case a certain fraction or per- 
centage of the total value of the stimulus. Now let this percentage 
be made equal to one hundred per cent. ; that is, let the intensity 
of the stimulus be increased by a series of steps such that the value 
of the stimulus at each step is double that of the stimulus of the 
preceding step ; then from our empirical law we may deduce 
that the sensations evoked by this series of stimuli will differ in 
intensity by equal amounts. That is to say the sensation- 
intensities will form a series of values in arithmetical progression, 
while the corresponding stimulus-values will form a series in 
geometrical progression. This inference may be stated in the 
form of geometrical curves. Construct two curves, Sn and St, 
representing the two series of intensities, the sensation-intensities 
and the stimulus-intensities respectively, in the following way : — 




Fig. 9. 

The ordinates of Sn {a, b, c, d, e) represent the values of the 
sensation-intensities, those of St the values of the corresponding 
stimulus-intensities a, /3, 7, h, i. 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 141 

Now, if we apply to any sense organ the slightest possible 
stimulation we find that it evokes no perceptible sensation, and 
that the intensity of the stimulus must be raised to a certain 
definite value, before it suffices to evoke a just perceptible 
sensation. Fechner argued that the stimuli which are too feeble 
to evoke perceptible sensations cannot be supposed to produce 
no effect at all ; and that they must rather be supposed to produce 
imperceptible sensations, or, as he preferred to say, sensations 
which do not rise above the threshold of consciousness. And 
he saw in the definite mathematical relation of the two series of 
intensities, represented by the two curves, a proof of the reality of 
these sensations below the threshold of consciousness. For, let 
a be a stimulus of such intensity that it just suffices to evoke the 
sensation a of just perceptible intensity. Then the horizontal 
line passing through a represents the threshold of consciousness ; 
whereas the ordinate expressing the intensity of stimulus a rises 
to a definite height above the base line representing zero of 
stimulus intensity. Now the two curves having definite mathe- 
matical properties may be produced in both directions, each 
according to its own law. When we thus produce the curves,, 
we find that, while the curve St (representing the stimulus- 
intensities) approaches the base line asymptotically, Sn (represent- 
ing the sensation-intensities) sinks at once below the line repre- 
senting the threshold of consciousness. The part of the curve 
St between a and the base line, which represents a series of 
subminimal stimuli, implies the corresponding part of the curve 
Sn, i.e., the part below the line which represents the threshold of 
consciousness. Here, said Fechner, we have proof that a series 
of sensations, x, y, s, which remain below the threshold of con- 
sciousness, is evoked by the series of subminimal stimuli. This 
was the line of argument developed at length by Fechner in the 
" Elemente der Psycho-physik." 

The esthetic argument or persuasion was set forth at great 
length in several works.^ Professor James has recently pub- 
lished ^ a vivid summary of this part of Fechner's work, and I 
may therefore describe it in a very few words. 

Fechner, as I said above, did not shrink from the corollary 
implied by his psycho-physical doctrine, the corollary that all 
the universe consists of consciousness ; rather he gloried in it,, 

^ " Die Seelenfrage," " Zendavesta," " Nana." 
^ " A Pluralistic Universe," chap. iv. 



142 BODY AND MIND 

regarding it as the chief claim of his view to acceptance. He 
•called this peculiar view of the constitution of the world, the 
" day-view " of Nature, and favourably contrasted this view, that all 
Nature enjoys or is consciousness, with the view, prevalent in the 
scientific world, that the inorganic part of Nature is inert and 
unconscious, the " night-view " as he called it. He held up his 
•day-view as revealing a Nature indefinitely more pleasing and 
satisfying to our contemplation than the Nature of the night- 
view ; he drew a glowing picture of all Nature rejoicing together, 
•delighting in the sense of its own beauty and orderliness ; he 
even regarded each planet and star as enjoying an individual 
consciousness and glowing with joyful pride as it rolls on its 
majestic way through space. For, just as he regarded the 
individual consciousness of each man as in some sense a sum 
or aggregate of the feebler poorer consciousnesses of the vital 
units, the cells, of which his body is composed, and as in turn 
•entering as a component into the wider richer consciousness of 
the whole human race ; so he regarded the consciousness of each 
stellar body as being in a similar way the mighty stream of 
consciousness formed by the flowing together of the conscious- 
nesses of all its constituent parts, both organic and inorganic, 
human and infrahuman, and as in turn entering into a still 
mightier stream, the universal consciousness. How much more 
satisfying, said Fechner, is the contemplation of the universe 
■when so conceived, than when we look upon it as consisting of 
immense systems of lifeless matter, forming a stage on which 
men spend their brief moments of conscious life, oppressed by 
the dreary vastness of the spaces, times, and forces that compass 
them about ! 

We have seen that the doctrine or postulate of the continuity 
of evolution of the organic and inorganic worlds is used as an 
argument against Animism. The same postulate is used in a 
rather different way as the basis of a special argument in favour 
of the identity-hypothesis in one or other of its two forms, and 
by some authors, notably by Tyndall ^ and by Professor Lloyd 
Morgan,^ this argument is regarded as of the greatest weight. 
It runs thus : — The evolution of organic life has been continuous 
from the lowliest unicellular form up to man ; at no point is there 

^ The Belfast Address to British the Association, 1874. 
^ " Introduction to Comparative Psychology," chap, xviii. 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 143 

an absolute break in the series, or any indication of the incoming 
of mind as a new factor in the evolutionary process. Now we 
have evidence that the earth has existed in isolation (so far as 
any material continuity is concerned) from all other parts of the 
material universe, since a date long preceding that at which the 
existence of organic matter upon it became possible ; for such 
matter cannot exist at high temperatures and could only begin to 
exist when the crust was pretty well cooled down. Hence 
organic matter must be presumed to have been evolved from 
inorganic matter by a continuous and gradual process ; hence 
what we call life and mind or soul or consciousness ^ must have 
been present in some very lowly forms in the inorganic matter 
from which organic matter was evolved, and therefore in all 
inorganic matter ; that is to say, all matter must be regarded as 
in some sense and degree conscious or endowed with psychical 
life ; and, since inorganic matter is wholly subject to the strictly 
mechanical laws in spite of its consciousness, so organic matter 
must be likewise subject to the strictly mechanical principles, and 
psychical life or process accompanying the physical processes of 
matter, must be devoid of all influence on the physical processes 
— a conclusion which is compatible only with one or other of 
the parallelistic theories, and not at all with interaction 
theories. 

This reasoning from the continuity of the evolution of the 
animal kingdom from non-living matter is supplemented by the 
following argument, which I give in the form in which it was 
presented by F. A. Lange in a well-known passage of his " History 
of Materialism." Let a pair of mice be shut up in a room with a 
sack of flour and allowed to breed undisturbed. After a few 
months the whole of the flour has disappeared, the greater part 
of its substance having been converted into the bodies of a swarm 
of mice. Whatever consciousness or psychical capacity may be 
enjoyed by tKe mice must then, it is said, have been present in 
some form in the flour. 

In addition to the special arguments in favour of the"^ several 
automaton theories that we have now reviewed, we must notice 
certain considerations which may be adduced in favour of a 
monistic solution in general. These considerations are appeals 
to various motives, various sentiments and prejudices, rather 
than logical arguments. The motives brought into operation 
^ Infra-consciousness is the term preferred by Prof. Lloyd Morgan, {loc. cit.). 



144 BODY AND MIND 

by these appeals have played a great part in determining the 
choice of the monistic theories by so many moderns. 

The most important of these motives is probably the desire 
for a well-rounded, self- consistent, conceptual scheme of the 
physical w^orld. Now the rejection root and branch of all 
psycho-physical interaction enables us to entertain such a 
conceptual scheme ; wliile the adoption of any one of the parallel- 
istic hypotheses enables us to hold it without incurring the 
reproach of philosophical crudity or absurdity which, as all 
with few exceptions can see, lies against crude Materialism. The 
adoption of any one of the monistic hypotheses, then, brings 
with it all the advantages of a materialistic metaphysic while 
avoiding its principal drawback. And that is, doubtless, the 
explanation of the fact that these monistic hypotheses have secured 
the adhesion of so large a proportion of the students of the 
natural sciences. 

The peculiar advantage of the materialistic scheme of things, 
to which it chiefly owes its attractiveness, is that its acceptance 
brings with it a coniident sense of intellectual mastery. So long 
as we can confidently believe that all the events to be reckoned 
with by science are. but the motions of masses, or the transforma- 
tions of measurable quantities of energy according to exact 
equations that can be calculated and therefore foretold, the mind 
feels itself at home and master of what it deals with, and there 
lies before it the prospect of a continued approach towards a 
completed power of prediction and control of the future course of 
events. Under these conditions, the working hypotheses of the 
natural sciences become confidently held doctrines from which we 
feel ourselves able to deduce the limits of the possible ; and we 
seem able to rule out from our scheme of the universe all that con- 
fused crowd of obscure ideas which, under the names of magic, 
occultism, and mysticism, have been at war with science, ever since 
it began to take shape as a system of verifiable ideas inductively 
established on an empirical basis. Once admit, on the other hand, 
that psychical influences may interfere with the course of physical 
nature and — "you don't know where you are," you can no 
longer serenely afifirm that " miracles " do not happen ; they may 
happen at any moment and may falsify the most confident 
predictions of physical science. Thus the gates are opened to all 
the floods of Spiritualism and superstition of every kind, which to 
some gloomy scientists seem to threaten to light up once more 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 145 

the fires of persecution and to drag down our civilization 
from its hardly - won footing upon the steep path of 
progress. 

Paulsen urges his Psychical Monism upon our acceptance in 
a rather different way. The function of philosophy, says he, is to 
mediate between science and religion, to reconcile their teachings 
and aspirations. Now, the physical scientists will never tolerate 
the intervention of non-physical agencies in their physical world ; 
they will always assume that every event is determined strictly 
according to the laws of physical or mechanical causation ; that 
such explanation of all events in the universe without exception is 
possible, is the fundamental axiom of science, ^ Therefore a 
reconciliation of science with religion can only be effected by 
admitting the claim of science to furnish causal explanations of 
all events in terms of mechanism, while reserving for religion the 
task of providing an idealistic intei^pretation of the mechanically 
caused events. "Also: Alles muss physisch zugehen und erkldrt 
werden ; und : Alles muss metaphysisch betrachtet und gedeutet 
warden. Das ist die Formal, in der Physiker und Metaphysiker 
ilbereinkonimen konnen!' - The establishment of the monistic 
solution of the psycho-physical problem thus becomes the principal 
task of philosophy ; and we ought to welcome and accept this 
solution, because it allows usas men of science to be rigid materialists, 
to accept without scruple and without regret the most rigidly 
materialistic conclusions and tendencies of science, while as 
philosophers we remain idealists, asserting that all reality is at 
bottom mental. 

Another argument for Parallelism or psycho-physical Monism 
is found in the desire for a monistic scheme of the universe. 
Many philosophers seem to experience this desire to conceive the 

1 " Dariiber tiiusche man sich nicht : die Naturwissenschaft kann und wird 
sich von ihrem Wege nicht wieder abbringen lassen, eine vein phvsikalische 
Erklarung alley Naturerscheinungen zu suchen. Es mag tausend Dinge geben, 
die sie gegenwartig nicht erklaren kann, aber das prinzipielle Axiom, dass es 
auch fiir sie eine physische Ursache und also eine naturwissenschaftliche Erk- 
larung gebe, wird sie nicht wieder fahren lassen. Daher wird eine Philosophie, 
die darauf besteht, gewisse Naturvorgange konnten nicht ohne Rest physisch 
erklart werden, sondern machten die Annahme der Wirkung eines metaphysischen 
Prinzips oder eines supranaturalen Agens notwendig, die Naturwissenschaft 
zur unversohnhchen Gegnerin haben. In Frieden kann sie mit ihr nur leben, 
wenn sie sich der Einmischung in die hausale Erklarung der Naturerscheinungen 
grundsatzlich enthalt und die Naturwissenschaft ruhig ihren Weg bis zu Ende 
gehen lasst " (" Einleitung in die Philosophie," p. iSo). 

^ Op. cit., p. 181. 
10 



146 BODY AND MIND 

universe as at bottom consisting of only one kind of real being ; 
and not a few claim that this desire is a demand that our intel- 
lectual nature inevitably makes, and one that carries with it a 
guarantee of the validity of the monistic interpretation. Closely 
connected with this in many minds is the conviction that a 
universe monistically conceived, that is, conceived as a unitary 
whole of which all the parts are of one nature, is indefinitely 
nobler than one consisting of ultimate real beings of diverse 
natures. 

To many, again, it seems that the second form of the identity- 
hypothesis is preferable to all others, because it is essentially and 
necessarily an idealistic doctrine ; that is to say, because it is one 
which regards all reality as of the nature of mind : and such a view 
of the universe seems to them aesthetically superior to, or in some 
indefinable way nobler than, any scheme which recognizes the real 
existence of anything not mental in nature. This was the line of 
persuasion which, as we have seen, Fechner developed at great 
length. 

Least in worth, though not perhaps of least effect, among the 
influences that have brought about the very general acceptance of 
Parallelism, is the feeling that such a doctrine derives a certain 
distinction from being so entirely different from and opposed to 
the scholastic doctrine and all popular conceptions and common- 
sense views. For to many minds there is something attractive 
in any esoteric and difficult doctrine that rises above the reach 
of the common herd. And this feeling is given the form of an 
appeal to reason, in the following way : it is pointed out that the 
doctrine of Animism was originated by the first crude efforts of 
speculative reason, at a time when man was but a naked savage 
following a bestial mode of life, knowing little of the laws of nature, 
ignorant of their harmony and constancy ; that it was a monstrous 
birth begot by fear out of greed ; a conception not without its 
social uses in the earlier stages of social evolution, serving through 
superstitious fear to discipline man in the control of his cruder 
impulses ; but one which no longer serves any useful purpose, and 
which is fit only to be set up in the ethnographical museums of 
primitive customs and beliefs alongside of its monstrous progeny, 
totemism and magic, witch - craft and polytheism, vitalism and 
possession, free-will, human immortality and divine retribution, 
heaven, hell, and the devil, and all the crowd of spectres with 
which man's wayward and fearful imagination has for so many 



THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 147 

ages oppressed him, cumbering his progress in true knowledge and 
in command over the forces of nature. 

We have seen now how, in the long course of development of 
thought, the conception of the soul, which came into the culture 
tradition of Europe as a heritage from our savage ancestors, has 
been > reiined in successive ages, until it has been refined away 
altogether : how the soul, beginning as a material or quasi - 
material shadowy duplicate of the body, became divested of its 
bodily characters ; so that it remained a mere spirituous tenuous 
vapour, diffused equally throughout the body or concentrated 
more or less in certain of its parts or organs, and somehow play- 
ing an essential and dominant role in the life of the body : how 
the specialization of learning along the biological and psycho- 
logical lines led to the division of the soul into two souls, one 
concerned in the governance of the bodily functions, the other 
the substrate of the intellectual functions, while those organic 
functions in which the co-operation of mind and body is most 
strikingly obvious continued to hover uncertainly between the two 
souls or to demand a third as their substrate : how the two souls 
became, the one the vital principle of the physiologists, the other 
the immortal inextended substrate or support of the mental 
functions : how then the progress of physiology led to the rejection 
of the vital principle, and how increasing insight into the structure 
and functions of the nervous system seemed to render superfluous 
the notion of the teleological agency of the soul and to reduce con- 
sciousness to an epiphenomenon : how the development of exact 
quantitative notions in physical science, first under the form of the 
scheme of kinetic mechanism, later as dynamic mechanism obeying 
the law of the conservation of energy, confirmed the physiologists 
in their rejection of both the vital principle and the soul, by affirm- 
ing that the physical world constitutes a closed system of causally 
related processes insusceptible of being influenced by other than 
physical agencies: how the philosophers discovered that the concep- 
tions of both soul and body are mere inferences from our immediate 
experience and that neither can be regarded as above suspicion : 
and how, under the influence of physical and biological science, 
they have excogitated solutions of the psycho-physical problem 
that escape the absurdities of Materialism and Subjective Idealism, 
while claimino; to reconcile the materialistic conclusions of modern 



148 BODY AND MIND 

science with our ineradicable belief in the reality and efficiency of 
mind, with the principles of the most exacting metaphysic, and 
even in some degree with the demands of religion. Who then 
would hesitate to accept the conclusion towards which all branches 
of science, all those lines of exact research whose results we have 
noted, seem to drive us irresistibly ? Who would seek to deny 
the universal sway of the laws of mechanism and to subvert the 
vast and splendid pyramid of modern science to which the 
monistic interpretation of the psycho-physical problem is the very 
crown, the glorious consumm.ation which heals the age-long struggle 
between scientific Materialism and the philosopher's conviction ot 
the reality and primacy of mind ? Who would still hanker after 
that vague elusive notion of the soul, first launched into the stream 
of thought by the troubled fancy of savage man, while yet he lived 
like a beast, knowing nought of the wonderful harmonies of 
nature and seeing in all her motions neither law nor order but 
only the vengeful caprice of a host of spirits, before which he 
grovelled muttering spells and incantations ? Surely only a fool 
or a fanatic ! 

Yet hesitate we must until we shall have critically examined 
the arguments, drawn from epistemology, from metaphysic, and 
from the natural sciences, which seem to make Animism unten- 
able, and the special and general arguments advanced in favour 
of the several monistic interpretations ; and until we shall have 
inquired whether any one of the automaton theories allows us to 
construct an intelligible and self-consistent account of human 
personality. This part of our task will occupy us in the 
following chapters. 



CHAPTER XII 

EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON-THEORIES AND OF 
THE SPECIAL ARGUMENTS IN THEIR FAVOUR 

IN this chapter I propose to examine in turn the four principal 
monistic interpretations of the relation of mind to body, to 
weigh the special arguments advanced in their support, and 
to point out the special difficulties in the way of each of them. 
Beside these special difficulties there is a number of empirically- 
based objections of a more general kind, which may be more 
suitably dealt with in later chapters under the head of positive 
arguments in favour of Animism. 

Epiphenomenalisni 

To some persons it seems sufficient for the refutation of 
Epiphenomenalism to assert the absurdity of the supposition that 
the existence of mind should be dependent on that of matter, or 
that mind and consciousness should have been generated by the 
mere increase in complexity of molecular organization of certain 
forms of inanimate matter ; for, they say, it is only through and 
by mind that matter can be known. But this assertion does not 
confute the epiphenomenalist. He may reply — But suppose for 
a moment that my account of the case is the true one, that 
matter really did precede mind, did generate it in the course of 
the evolution of material processes of ever greater complexity ; 
then, he might say, your attitude might still be just what it is 
now ; mind, once evolved and once having learnt to reflect upon" 
itself and its relation to matter, would inevitably use just your 
arguments ; it would claim a primacy over matter, the primacy of 
the knower over the known, and in the pride of self-consciousness 
would despise its parent, matter, and would incline to assert its 
independence of it. In face of this reply a repeated assertion 
of the conviction of the primacy of mind would have little effect. 

Nor will it suffice to assert that the human mind will never 
rest satisfied with this account of itself as a mere by-product of 

149 



ISO BODY AND MIND 

matter and its evolutions, but will always continue to seek 
some position that will do less outrage to the reality of 
experience. 

Epiphenomenalism must be met in a different way, namely, 
by pointing out that just those considerations which are held to 
make the doctrine of psycho-physical interaction impossible tell 
equally strongly against it, while the motives which make for the 
parallelistic doctrines find no satisfaction in it ; that, in fact, it 
combines the principal weaknesses of both the parallelist and 
the interaction doctrines, while it lacks the principal advantages 
of either. Thus, the biological argument from continuity of 
evolution makes against Epiphenomenalism ; for the appearance 
of consciousness at some undefined point in the course of the 
evolution of the animal kingdom, as postulated by it, constitutes 
a distinct breach of continuity. The argument from incon- 
ceivability also makes against Epiphenomenalism more strongly 
than against Animism ; for the notion that material processes 
should generate consciousness out of nothing is certainly a more 
difficult conception than that of the interaction of soul and body. 
Again, Epiphenomenalism, though it may perhaps be consistent 
with the law of the conservation of energy, offends against a law 
that has a much stronger claim to universality, namely the law 
of causation itself; for it assumes that a physical process, say a 
molecular movement in the brain, causes a sensation, but does so 
without the cause passing over in any degree into the effect, 
without the cause spending itself in any degree in the production 
of the effect, namely, the sensation. It thus saves the law of con- 
servation of energy at the expense of the law of causation ; and 
such similes as those used by Huxley to illustrate his exposition 
and offered by him as examples of the production by mechanism of 
effects that are indifferent to its workings — the shadow thrown 
by the wheel, the whistling of the locomotive engine and so on — 
all such similes are misleading and fallacious if regarded as an- 
alogies ; for in every case the production of the effect, even 
though it be but a shadow or a reflection, leaves the machine and 
its processes other than they would have been if the effect had 
not been produced. 

Again, the identity-hypothesis claims with some show of 
reason to reconcile the teachings of science and philosophy ; but 
Epiphenomenalism, in assigning to mind an altogether insignifi- 
cant, dependent, and ineffective position in the scheme of the 



~N 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 151 

universe, sets itself in direct opposition to the overwhelmingly 
large majority of philosophers of all times and of all races. 

It is for these reasons that Epiphenomenalism has been 
accepted by few or none of those who have seriously tried to 
think out the psycho-physical problem ; and it is, I hope, un- 
necessary to say more in order to convince any reader that, if 
the balance of argument seems to him to incline against Animism, 
he must not prefer Epiphenomenalism. 

Before finally dismissing Epiphenomenalism, I must remark 
upon the illegitimate attempt made by some of its defenders to 
redeem it from the charge of Materialism. After assuring us 
that science has proved the absolute dependence of all mind on 
the material processes of animal organisms, and that the evolu- 
tion of these material organisms was but a trifling incident in the 
life of a universe which consists only of matter and physical 
energy in eternal agitation ; they turn round upon matter and 
ask- — But what is this matter ? You charge me with being a 
materialist, but I know as well as you that matter is only a 
figment of my imagination, that in seeing, touching, tasting, 
I perceive only certain states of my own consciousness, that 
material phenomena are but my own perceptions or ideas. Have 
I not, therefore, as good a right to call myself an idealist as you, 
or Bishop Berkeley, or any man ? Now, this is Solipsism or 
Subjective Idealism pure and simple ; it is the d,enial of all 
existence save one's own consciousness ; and, in attempting to 
save himself in this way from the absurdity of Materialism, the 
epiphenomenalist does but take upon himself the additional 
absurdity of Solipsism, and crowns himself with the final 
absurdity of professing adherence to both of the two most 
violently opposed metaphysical dogmas. Yet absurd as this 
procedure is, it is not unnecessary to utter a warning against 
it, for no less a writer than T. H. Huxley was guilty of it, as 
also, to the best of my judgment, the admirable historian of 
Materialism, F. A. Lange. " The Idealist," he wrote, " can and 
must in fact in natural science everywhere, apply the same con- 
ceptions and methods as the Materialists ; but what to the latter 
is definitive truth, is to the Idealist only the necessary result 
of our organization." ^ Lange, having accepted whole-heartedly 
the teaching of Materialism that mind is evolved from, and 
wholly dependent upon, matter, goes on to tell us, in the language 

1 Op. cit. 



152 BODY AND MIND 

of a glowing enthusiasm for humanity which commands our 
sympathy, that the human mind creates for itself a world of 
ideals in which it finds its true home — that man's spirit must 
soar above the vulgar real into the realm of ideas which are 
symbols of the Unknowable Absolute. It is true that Lange 
seems in some passages to accept Kant's notion of the thing-in- 
itself; but, as Professor Hoffding says, he wavers between the 
acceptance and the rejection of it, and on the whole his language 
justifies the assertion that for him matter is the only reality and 
the ideal is the unreal. Lange was thus an idealist only in the 
sense in which any materialist may be an idealist, namely, that 
he entertained ideals and, in splendid defiance of logical con- 
sistency, strove to make them real. 



Psycho-physical Pm^allelisin 

The doctrine that psychical processes and physical processes 
run parallel with one another without any causal relation is not 
seriously maintained save in the form of universal parallelism of 
the physical and the psychical. To assume that of all physical 
processes just certain brain-processes alone are accompanied by 
conscious concomitants, would leave the relation too obviously 
mysterious ; the coming into being of the sensation, at the 
moment of the occurrence of a brain-process of a certain quality, 
would be too decidedly miraculous. If we accept the principle 
of causation at all, we must assume that the rise of a sensation in 
consciousness is in some sense the effect of some cause. And, if 
we do not accept the principle of causation, we have no ground 
for believing in the existence of the brain-process, save as one's 
own thought of it ; and it then would be absurd to speak of 
parallelism, for my sensations do not run parallel with, are not 
temporal concomitants of, my thoughts of my brain-processes. 

This insuperable objection to partial Parallelism is avoided 
by universal Parallelism ; for, according to this doctrine, every 
physical process has its psychical concomitant, and both series are 
closed causal series. Thus, when a sense-stimulus seems to evoke a 
sensation in my consciousness, the physical stimulus causes only 
the sequence of physical changes in sensory nerves and brain ; and 
the sensation is a member of a causal sequence of events which 
runs parallel in time with every step of the physical sequence, stim- 
ulus, sense-organ-processes, processes of conduction throughout 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 153 

the sensory nerves and lower nervous centres ; and the sensation 
itself actually coincides in time with, or is the concomitant of, that 
part of the physical sequence which consists in the transmission 
of the nervous impulse through the cortex of the brain. 

. Now this statement of the doctrine of Parallelism at once 
raises the question — Why, then, of all the steps of the psychical 
sequence does this one alone appear as an element of my con- 
sciousness, and why does it become conjoined with similar elements 
(concomitant with the cortical steps of other physical sequences) 
to form the coherent field of consciousness of the moment in 
which these several cortical processes occur ? A similar diffi- 
culty stands in the way of every form of psycho-physical monism, 
and is an insuperable difficulty for all of them. And, therefore, I 
will not insist upon it here. It is sufficient for my purpose to 
point out that strict Parallelism is less acceptable than the identity 
hypotheses ; because it is open to all the principal objections that 
can be made to these, and incurs in addition a very great reproach 
which does not lie against them, namely, it asserts the relation of 
universal concomitance and leaves it absolutely mysterious and 
unintelligible. In this connexion it must be remembered that the 
doctrine asserts, not merely the temporal concomitance of some 
psychical process with every physical process, but that every event 
of the one kind corresponds qualitatively and in a perfectly definite 
and constant manner with an event of specific quality or character 
of the other kind, in such a way, indeed, that a sufficient empirical 
acquaintance with the two series would enable us to establish exact 
empirical laws of this temporal and qualitative correspondence, 
and to infer the one series from the observation of the other. 

This doctrine, then, involves the admission of ultimate unin- 
telligibility ; and it also obviously involves an ultimate or meta- 
physical dualism, which can only be got rid of by adopting the 
identity-hypothesis ; it therefore cannot claim to compete seriously 
with it for our acceptance. 

The alternative to Animism, then, must be the identity- 
hypothesis in one or other of its two forms. Before going on to 
the criticism of these, I would meet a possible exception that 
may be taken to the foregoing remarks on strict psycho-physical 
Parallelism. It may be said that the doctrine may be rendered 
intelligible and acceptable by adopting Leibnitz's conception of 
pre-established harmony. To this I reply that Leibnitz's con- 
ception is essentially animistic, and differs from other animistic 



154 BODY AND MIND 

doctrines chiefly in that Leibnitz's view of causation was peculiar. 
He assigned to each organism a soul, and though the soul was 
called a monad, and though the body and all other material things 
also were said by him to consist of monads, yet, as we have seen 
(p. 57j, he assigned to the human soul a position and a nature very 
different from those of other monads. The essential peculiarity of 
his view, which marks it off from other animistic doctrines, is 
that it substitutes for the principle of causal interaction that 
of the pre-established harmony of the internal evolution of all 
monads, just as thoroughgoing Occasionalism substitutes for it the 
conception of the perpetual action of God. And, since it is the 
behaviour of things which we are interested to understand, it 
matters little or nothing, from the point of view of science, 
whether we call the bond between them which secures the harmony 
of their changes one of causal interaction or of transient influence,, 
or one of harmony pre-established by the design of the Creator, 
or one consisting in the perpetual adjustment of their states by 
the direct act of God. 

Some of those who accept psycho-physical Parallelism in the 
strict or narrow sense tell us that we ought to accept it as a 
heuristic principle or a necessary working hypothesis for psycho- 
logy. Wundt and Munsterberg are the most prominent exponents 
of this doctrine ; though I speak with diffidence about Wundt's 
views, because, like some others, I have wrestled long and 
earnestly with his exposition of Parallelism, without being able 
to discover that he presents a consistent and intelligible doctrine. 
For Wundt, Parallelism is an empirical postulate ; for Munsterberg 
it is a postulate which we are driven to accept, not by empirical fact, 
but by epistemological theory.^ Both agree that the parallelism 
is only true of the sensory content of consciousness, and that 
therefore psychology can base itself on Parallelism only on the 
condition of regarding the whole of our psychical life as con- 
sisting in the conjunction and succession of elements of sensation, 
or of sensation and feeling.^ Both admit that to describe our 
mental life in this way is to falsify it ; and Munsterberg goes so- 
far as to insist that the " scientific " psychology constructed on 
the basis of Parallelism has no bearing whatever upon real life 

1 " Grundziige der Psychologie," p. 435. 

^ Thus Munsterberg {op. cit., p. 429), "Alias Psychische besteht aus Empfin- 
dungen und aus nichts als Empfindungen." Wundt adds to the elements of 
sensation also elements of feeling. 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 155 

and its problems. It is then a little difficult to understand what 
it is hoped to gain by basing psychology upon this postulate. 
Surely, when it is found that any working hypothesis so falsifies a 
science as to render it incapable of having any bearing upon 
practical life, only a mind having some curious twist can continue 
to retain it. 

The culminating absurdity of Wundt's position is that, after 
arguing at great length to show that psychology must accept 
psycho-physical Parallelism as a " heuristic principle " empirically 
based, he turns round and tells us that in considering voluntary 
movements of the body we must treat them as being psychically 
originated, because we cannot ascertain the nature of the 
physiological process which initiates them ; and that we must 
make use of the conception of psycho-physical interaction, so long 
as we cannot complete our account of the brain-processes.^ 

Miinsterberg's reductio ad absurduin of his adopted principle 
is more elaborate. After writing two books ^ to prove that his 
psychology, being based on " Parallelism," can have no application 
to real life, he has produced several very able and interesting 
books which are models of the application of psychology to 
problems of real life,^ and promises others which shall deal with 
the whole field of applied psychology, 

P henonienalistic Parallelisvi (^Identity -hypothesis A.) 

Against the doctrine that the psychical process and its 
concomitant physical process in the brain are but two different 
modes of appearance or aspects of one real process, two very 
serious objections must be made, in addition to all those that lie 
against all forms of psycho-physical monism. 

When we apply the phrase " two modes of appearance " or 
" two aspects " to explain the psycho-physical relation, we are 
using a phrase which has meaning for our minds only in virtue 
of certain of our experiences connected with physical phenomena. 
These experiences are of several kinds and the phrase has 
accordingly several corresponding meanings. In experiences of 
the one class we observe a series of events of a certain kind on 
two successive occasions, on each occasion from a different stand- 

1 " Physiologische Psychologie," 5th ed., vol. iii., p. 647. 

2 " Grundziige der Psychologie," and " Psychology and Life." 

3 " The Americans," " Psychology and Crime," " Psychology and the Teacher," 
" Psycho-therapeutics." 



156 BODY AND MIND 

point ; thus, to use the illustration suggested by Fechner, it is in 
principle possible for one person to observe the passage of the 
moon round the earth, at one time from a standpoint on 
the earth and at another from a standpoint on the moon. 
That is the type of one great class of experiences in which the 
difference of the appearances of a thing depends upon differ- 
ence of standpoint : the observation of movements in space from 
two different points in space. 

Another kind of experience which gives meaning to the phrase 
"" two aspects of the same thing or process," is the abstraction by 
thought of two features of a process successively ; thus, on 
considering the motion of a particle, one may fix one's attention 
successively upon the direction or changes of direction of its 
motion and_ upon the velocity or changes of velocity of its 
motion ; or, on observing a series of changes of colour, one may 
direct one's attention to the changes of colour-tone or to the 
changes of brightness or of saturation ; on hearing a melody, one 
may pay attention to the rhythm or to the harmonic relations. 
In all cases of this class the difference of aspect is secured by a 
difference of the setting of the attention, and the resulting concep- 
tions are abstractions merely. Again one may apprehend a 
physical event successively through two different senses, e.g. one 
may see the strokes of a hammer upon a gong, or one may hear 
them ; the one series of physical events appears then under two 
different aspects. 

There are, I think, no other radically different classes of 
experience that give meaning to the phrase " two aspects of the 
same process." 

The question is then — Does the phrase derive from any one 
of these classes of experience a meaning which is applicable to 
the psycho-physical relation ? Or, in other words, is the difference 
of aspect apprehended in any of these experiences truly analogous 
to the difference between physical and psychical processes ? 

As regards the experiences of all these classes it is to be 
noted that that which appears under two different aspects appears 
in every case as of the same order in both aspects, and is 
apprehended in a similar way in both cases ; in the first class 
both aspects are of the order of paths of motion in space ; in the 
second class the two aspects are simultaneously given as qualita- 
,tive changes of one series of sensations; in the third class the 
two aspects of the one process are the sensations of two different 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 157 

classes simultaneously excited in the same consciousness and 
referred to the same cause, the physical process. But the 
brain-process and the rise of a sensation in consciousness, which 
are said to be two aspects or appearances of one real process, 
are two events of radically different orders, and are apprehended in 
two radically different ways, the one by sense-perception, the 
other by reflective introspection. 

Again, in the experiences of the first class we do not really 
observe the same process under two aspects, we merely observe 
the repetition of a process of a certain kind on two successive 
occasions. Further, it is characteristic of the experiences of this 
class, that the appearance of the process at the one standpoint can 
be inferred or exactly calculated from the appearance at the other 
standpoint, by a purely logical process. Nothing of this sort is 
true of the relation of the psychical to the physical ; we cannot 
in the least degree deduce the nature of the one series from the 
observation of the other. 

The experiences of the second and third classes fail in 
another way to afford a true analogy to the supposed 
relation of the physical to the psychical and therefore fail 
to give meaning to the phrase in which the relation is 
described. It is of the essence of the two-aspect doctrine that, 
as Spinoza explicitly affirmed, the causal sequence shall be 
completely given under both aspects, the physical and the 
psychical. But, when we abstract the direction of a motion from 
its velocity, or the change of quality of a colour-sensation from^ 
the change of its saturation or intensity ; or when we apprehended 
simultaneously the series of auditory and visual sensations evoked 
by the hammer ; in all these cases the causal sequence is not 
given or apprehended under both aspects, for in each case we are 
dealing with partial aspects achieved only by a process of mental 
abstraction and by a deliberate neglecting of the remaining aspects 
simultaneously presented. 

A still more serious objection to this " two-aspect doctrine " 
remains to be stated. A thing or being or process can appear 
under two different aspects, can manifest itself in two different 
modes, only if and when both aspects are apprehended by the 
mind of some observer ; either one observer must occupy the 
two standpoints successively, or two or more observers must 
apprehend it from the different standpoints. Now, in the case 
of the physical and the psychical processes which are said to 



158 BODY AND MIND 

be two aspects of one real process, there is no such observer 
■occupying the inner standpoint and apprehending the inner 
or psychical aspect of the real event, except in the altogether 
■exceptional case of the introspecting psychologist ; in which 
case a part of the stream of consciousness may, perhaps, be 
said to be apprehended by a later coming part. The process 
of apprehending a physical change is itself, according to this 
•doctrine, the inner aspect of a real process ; but, when the 
observer (let us call him A) is apprehending a physical event, 
say the fall of a stone, he is not normally at the same time 
observing his own consciousness ; he is occupying the outer, 
not the inner standpoint. In such a case, then, the real process, 
(the two aspects or phenomenal appearances of which are on the 
■one hand A's consciousness of the" falling stone, and on the other 
hand the corresponding process in A's brain) is apprehended 
neither from the inner nor the outer standpoint, although in 
principle it is capable of being observed from both ; but now 
the phenomenal appearances consist in being apprehended, their 
■esse is perxipi, they are by the hypothesis merely appearances 
for an apprehending mind ; hence, in the case we are considering 
and in all similar cases, i.e., (in all cases of perception in which the 
subject's attention is wholly given to his external object), we are 
led by the hypothesis to the following conclusion — neither the 
phenomenal process in A's brain nor his consciousness of the fall- 
ing stone have any being whatever, since their esse is percipi, and 
they are not perceived or apprehended. Now the denial of the 
brain-process raises no insuperable difficulty, it is acceptable to 
many philosophers ; but the denial of A's consciousness of the 
falling stone is more serious. Suppose A to be yourself, and 
suppose that you play a sharp rally in the course of a game 
■of tennis, or play a difficult ball at the wicket ; then your 
attention at the moment of expecting the ball was wholly directed 
to the object. A moment later you sit down to describe in 
detail the way you took that ball ; and a philosopher then 
undertakes to prove to you, by the reasoning outlined above, that 
you were not conscious of the ball at the moment of its approach. 
Will he succeed in convincing you of the truth of his thesis ? I 
think not. It is true that among a certain class of , philosophers 
there is still current the dogma that all consciousness is self- 
consciousness, and that in all knowing you know that you know. 
But, even if this dogma were admissible in the case of human 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 159 

knowing, it is certainly not admissible for the infra-human intelli- 
gences ; to the animals we cannot deny consciousness or at least 
sentiency ; and the double-aspect hypothesis necessitates the 
assumption of an inner or psychical aspect to the events of the 
infra-organic realm also. 

These considerations seem to me to raise an insuperable 
objection to this form of the identity-hypothesis ; namely there 
is lacking, except in certain special cases, any observer occupying 
the inner standpoint. The difficulty is not met by saying that 
in knowing or perceiving one knows that one knows, or that one's 
knowing is an appearance to oneself. For such knowing as that 
is peculiar to the most highly developed minds ; lower types 
of mind cannot be credited with reflective introspective self- 
consciousness, or self-consciousness of any kind, and yet they 
must be allowed to be conscious, their brain-processes must be 
allowed to have their psychical correlates : their knowing is 
directly known by no one, is not an appearance for any observing 
mind, and yet it exists or goes on. 

Perhaps at this point some reader will wish to remind me 
of Kant's doctrine of the " inner sense," which perceives the 
" phenomena of consciousness " as the outer sense perceives the 
phenomena of the physical world. Of this " inner sense " I need 
only say that it was merely a faculty invented by Kant to 
meet the exigences of his peculiar system, that it is now generally 
regarded as indefensible, and that, even if we accept the notion, 
the difficulty of the " two-aspect doctrine," pointed out in the 
foregoing paragraph, is in no way diminished. 

As to Spinoza's form of this hypothesis, it is now generally 
admitted, even by ardent admirers of Spinoza's philosophy, that 
it cannot be consistently worked out. Sir F, Pollock, for 
example, demolishes it with the following unanswerable criticism : 
" Spinoza's Attributes are in effect defined as objects, or rather 
as objective worlds. But the general form of the definition 
disguises the all-important fact that the world of thought, and 
that alone, is subjective and objective at once. The intellect 
which perceives an Attribute as ' constituting the essence of 
Substance,' itself belongs to the Attribute of Thought. Thus, 
if we push analysis further, we find that Thought swallows up 
all the other attributes ; for all conceivable Attributes turn out 
to be objective aspects of Thought itself." ^ 

^ " Spinoza : His Life and Philosophy," p. 179. 



i6o BODY AND MIND 

We may then fairly say, with Professor Stumpf, — " the one 
substance which is supposed to manifest itself in the two attri- 
butes, the physical and the psychical, is nothing but a word which 
expresses the desire to escape from dualism, but which does not 
really bridge the gulf for our understanding." ^ 

This form of the identity-hypothesis lies open also to all the 
metaphysical objections that are raised against the conception of 
substance or substantiality, and, though I do not attach great 
importance to them, they cannot be set aside as of no weight, 
since many acute minds take a different view. 

The difficulties of phenomenalistic parallelism are, then, very 
great, indeed insuperable ; accordingly we find that the second 
form of the identity-hypothesis, namely. Psychical Monism, is the 
form of Parallelism that can claim the most influential supporters 
at the present day ; and it is this second form that we must 
chiefly keep in mind, on weighing against one another the rival 
claims of the animistic and the parallelistic interpretations of the 
psycho-physical relation. 

Psychical Monism {Identity-hypothesis B) 

According to ' the second form of the identity-hypothesis, 
consciousness or conscious-process is the thing-in-itself, the 
fundamental and only reality, while all physical processes are the 
phenomenal appearances of conscious process ; this is now 
generally regarded as being the strongest and the most subtle of 
the monistic interpretations of the psycho-physical relation. But 
this also has its peculiar difficulties, in addition to those common 
to all psycho-physical Monism. We must begin our criticism of 
this view by insisting that its supporters shall stand faithfully by 
the pre- suppositions from which they have chosen to set out and 
which they have made the very foundation of their argument. 
These fundamental propositions are three : ( i ) consciousness or con- 
scious-process (or something of the same nature, but so very much 
simpler as to require a different name, such as mind-stuff or infra- 
consciousness) is the only reality, the only mode of existence or of 
real being. (2) By each one of us only one tiny fragment of reality 
is directly known, namely the stream of his own consciousness ; 
although all the rest of the universe consists of other conscious 
processes, it can be apprehended by him only under the form of 
^ " Leib und Seele," p. 16. 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES i6i 

material or physical phenomena. (3) The appearances to us of 
other real or conscious processes under the forms of physical 
objects and processes bear some constant and orderly relation to 
those real processes, so that the descriptions and explanations of 
the universe given by physical science are valid, though they are 
symbolic only ; that is to say, all the processes which constitute 
the universe proceed according to, or can be fully explained in 
terms of, the laws of mechanical causation. 

This last is the pre-supposition on which it is especially 
necessary to insist ; for it is this one which is most apt to be 
tacitly let slip by those who accept Parallelism in this form. 
But it is the acceptance without reserve of the teachings 
of physical science, especially of its doctrine that the laws 
of mechanical causation hold universal sway, which constitutes, 
we are told, the chief claim of the monistic view upon our 
acceptance ; while the rejection by Animism of the claim of the 
mechanical principles of explanation to universal validity is its 
great offence. 

Now, according as the psychical monist inclines to an 
intellectualistic or a voluntaristic psychology, he regards knowing 
or willing as the essence of conscious process. In the former 
case, then, he claims that all that exists is " knowing," though 
there is no one who knows and nothing, save knowing, to be known ; 
or, in the latter case, that all that exists is " willing," though 
there is no one who wills and nothing to be willed but willing. 
I confess that, if a philosophical gourmet should tell me — " All 
that exists is ' eating,' though there is no one who eats and 
nothing to be eaten but eating," his statement would seem to me 
hardly less paradoxical. 

But parody is not serious criticism. The principal positive 
superiority over its rivals claimed for this form of Monism is its re- 
jection of the notion of substance or thing and its replacement of it 
by the notion of activity or process. Substance, whether material 
or spiritual, is rejected as an antiquated bit of popular metaphysic ; 
and with it to the same limbo must go all such notions as 
substantial beings or things, beings that remain self-identical in 
spite of partial changes. If we object that we find those notions 
essential to our thought, that we cannot think of relations without 
terms, of activities without things acting and acted upon, of 
changes without things that change, of movements without things 
that move, of knowing without subjects that know and objects 

II 



1 62 BODY Ax\D MIND 

that are known ; we are told that this is a false or psychological 
necessity of thought engendered merely by bad habits, a 
necessity to be carefully distinguished from true or logical 
necessities of thought.^ 

.. Let us first examine, from the point of view of physical 
science, this proposal to banish things from the universe. Science 
distinguishes between rest and change, between potential and 
active energy, between the mere persistence of a given state of a 
system and its change ; and it regards all changes as involving 
transformations of energy. Even though it may resolve all things 
into swarms of atoms in perpetual motion and atoms into ether 
vortices, yet this is only to drive back the notion of substance 
or thing ; for the ether remains as the enduring basis of all this 
process. And even when it is proposed to replace mechanics 
by energetics and matter by energy, this can only be done by 
conceiving energy as something capable of enduring, as some- 
thing whose quantity persists unchanged in spite of qualitative 
transformations. What then, in the metaphysical translation of 
the description of the world given by physical science, is to 
correspond to this distinction between systems of matter or 
energy at rest or doing no work, and those that are doing work 
or transforming energy ? ^ 

But the impossibility of banishing altogether the notion of 
substance is even clearer in the case of psychological than of 
physical science. My consciousness is a stream of consciousness 
which has a certain unique unity ; it is a multiplicity of distinguish- 
able parts or features which, although they are perpetually changing, 
yet hang together as a continuous whole within which the changes 
go on. This then is the nature of consciousness as we know 
it. Now it is perfectly obvious and universally admitted that 
my stream of consciousness is not self-supporting, is not self- 
sufficient, is not a closed self-determining system ; it is admitted 

1 Paulsen, " Einleitung," p. 392. 

- Clifford's doctrine of mind-stuff avoids this difficulty by pointing to the " small 
pieces of mind-stuff " of which elementary feelings are composed. Consciousness 
is then a composite stuff, and conscious processes are the rearrangements of 
the pieces of stuff. But this is to make these atoms of mind-stuff into enduring 
self-identical units of substance. It is substantial atomism of the most un- 
disguised kind, a simple translation of the material atom of physics into a 
psychical atom ; and, since these psychical atoms obey, according to the doctrine, 
the laws of mechanism, it is difficult to see that they differ, save in name, from 
the physical atom. In any case, Chfford's conception can claim neither all the 
merits nor all the difficulties of the " Actualistische Seele." 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 165 

that each phase of the stream does not flow wholly out of the 
preceding phase, and that its course cannot be explained without 
the assumption of influences coming upon it from without. What 
then are these influences ? The Psychical Monist must reply — 
they are other consciousnesses. How then about the process by 
which the other consciousnesses, the other streams of conscious- 
ness, influence my stream of consciousness? Is this also 
consciousness ? (For, we are told, all process is conscious 
process.) If so, then it also is a stream of consciousness and 
it must influence my stream through the agency of yet another 
stream, and so on ad infinitwii. Thus my consciousness itself, 
by reason of the fact that it hangs together as a stream of 
process relatively independent of other streams of process, implies 
the essence of what is meant by substantiality, namely, the con- 
tinuing to have or be a numerically distinct existence, in spite of 
partial change. 

t That consciousness exists or occurs in streams, each of which 
is something relatively apart from, demarcated from, other parts 
of reality, is a fundamental fact which raises insuperable diffi- 
culties for Psychical Monism. The psychical monist cannot escape 
them by saying that the stream of consciousness consists of 
elements or atoms of consciousness or mind-stuff, and that the 
stream is formed by the coming together of a number of such 
elements ; that is a psychical atomism involving the notion of 
" substance," so abhorrent to his fundamental principle. If any 
one, following Clifford and wishing to adopt the psychical monist's 
doctrine without his principles, takes this view of the stream 
of consciousness, then it must be pointed out to him that every 
stream has its banks which mark it off from others and give 
it numerical distinctness, i.e. every stream owes its existence 
as a stream to conditions that lie outside itself and impress 
upon it the character of a stream. Perhaps he will point to 
the Gulf Stream as a stream without banks. Then it must 
be answered that this is a fallacious analogy — the Gulf Stream 
owes its formation to external influences, and only persists as 
a stream so long as the momentum originally impressed upon 
it from without is not spent through its interaction with the 
waters through which it flows. The numerical distinctness of 
streams of consciousness is a fundamental fact with which every 
psychological theory and every metaphysical system must deal, 
and which especially demands explanation from the system 



1 64 BODY AND MIND 

which asserts that all existence is conscious-process. How- 
then does Psychical Monism propose to deal with this fact ? 
Merely by leaving it on one side as inexplicable. " Gentlemen, 
let us look this difficulty boldly in the face and pass on to the 
next." That justly famous proposal accurately describes the 
attitude of Psychical Monism when confronted with this difficulty. 
Thus Paulsen says, " Soul is the multiplicity of inner experiences 
bound together to a unity in a way of which nothing can be 
said." ^ (" Seele is die auf nicht weiter sagbare Weise zur Einheit 
verbundene Vielheit innerer Erlebnisse.") And again he writes — ■ 
" It is a fact that the processes of the inner life do not occur 
in isolation, and that each is lived with the consciousness of 
belonging to the unitary whole of this individual life. How 
this can happen I cannot pretend to say, any more than I 
can say how consciousness at all is possible." ^ 

Now the hanging together of a multiplicity of conscious pro- 
cesses in a numerically distinct or individual stream is the very 
essence of soul or spirit ; for, if the distinguishable elements of all 
consciousness (sensations, feelings, ideas, presentations, or whatever 
we please to name them) occurred as isolated elements or complexes, 
or in one huge jumble in which were no coherent streams 
or groups, there would be nothing that could be called spirit 
or mind, but rather a mere chaos of mind-stuff. When, then, 
Paulsen tells us that there can be no stronger proof of the 
insufficiency of any world-view than that it should find itself com- 
pelled to declare the existence of spirit to be an insoluble riddle,^ 
Psychical Monism is condemned by the mouth of its champion. 
For it leaves every spirit or mind as " eine auf nicht weiter sagbare 
Weise zur Einheit verbundene Vielheit innerer Erlebnisse." 

Most of the other exponents of Psychical Monism ignore 
this problem or, like Paulsen, are content to call it insoluble 
and to pass on. F. A. Lange, for example, who would, I 
think, have classed himself as a Psychical Monist, speaks of 
" The metaphysical riddle, how out of the multiplicity of atomic 
movements there arises the unity of the psychical image " ; and 
adds, " We hold this riddle, as we have often said, to be in- 
soluble.""* Prof Strong leaves the problem untouched.^ Fechner 

1 " Einleitung," p. 387. ^ Op. cit., p. 386. ^ " Einleitung," p. 258. 

■* " History of Materialism," vol. iii. p. 213. 

^ It was interesting to me on meeting Prof. Strong recently to find that he- 
had discovered, and was puzzling over, this problem, which he formulated ia 
the sentence, " What holds consciousness together ? " 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 165 

alone, so far as I am aware, has made a resolute attempt to 
deal with it ; but that this attempt achieved no success I 
hope to show in a later chapter on the unity of consciousness. 

Now let us turn to another difficulty of Psychical Monism. 
The stream of consciousness is in part determined by influences 
coming from outside, which we call sense-impressions ; but, when 
we take these fully into account, the course of the stream of 
consciousness remains still unexplained ; that is to say, its course 
is not wholly determined by the two factors, consciousness itself 
and the sense-stimuli or sense-impressions. It is determined in 
a very important and, in fact, vastly predominant degree by 
some other real condition or conditions, which we commonly 
call the structure or constitution of the individual mind.i Quite 
apart, then, from any question as to what the structure of the mind 
may be, what stuff it may be built of, we are able to infer its 
presence and operation from the orderly and lawful regularity of the 
stream of consciousness, which cannot be explained from the nature 
of the stream itself and from the nature and the order of succession 
of the sense-impressions ; and we are able to discover a number 
of general laws of this structure and operation, and to describe 
how it gradually grows, every moment of conscious life leaving 
it altered in such a way that its influence upon later coming parts 
of the stream of consciousness is modified, until its structure and 
its influence upon conscious life become exceedingly complex. But, 
as compared with consciousness itself, this conditioning fac- 
tor, the structure of the mind, is relatively stable and unchang- 
ing ; to its stability is due all that constancy of mode of 
conscious reaction which distinguishes one personality from 
another. The faithful retention of memories through periods of 
many years, manifested by their subsequent return to conscious- 
ness, implies in fact a statical or relatively unchanging condition 
of something, call it what we may. The psychical monist, if he is 
consistent, must affirm that the structure of the mind, the sum of 
these statical enduring conditions by which the stream of his 
consciousness is at every moment predominantly determined, is 
that of which the brain is the phenomenon, and that this enduring 
structure itself consists of streams of consciousness. 

^ This is admitted by the most thoroughgoing monists ; thus Paulsen, for 
example, writes : " Im Bewusstsein ist nur ein iiberaus geringer Teil des gesamten 
Seelenlebens, das wir doch voraussetzen miissen, um die Vorgange im Bewusstsein 
2u konstruieren " (" Einleitung," p. 15S). 



1 66 BODY AND MIND 

Now this supposition is quite inconsistent with all that we 
know of consciousness ; consciousness is essentially and always a 
flow, a perpetual flux, a process never enduring without change 
for the briefest moment. And the ascription to any consciousness 
of the stable unchanging character of these enduring conditions of 
our consciousness oversteps the bounds of legitimate analogy. 

Some of the psychical monists therefore shrink from this 
assertion and, like Professor Strong, assume that this enduring 
structure of the mind is a system of psychical dispositions. 
Writing of these as conceived by Dr Stout, Strong says, " We 
must therefore raise these hypothetical psychical dispositions to 
the rank of extra-mental realities, and a system of such realities^ 
neither ' simple ' nor ' undivided ' yet quite sufficiently ' active,' 
will form our substitute for the soul." But this is to break with 
his fundamental metaphysical principles and to go over to the 
enemy, Animism. For such a system of psychical dispositions, 
neither conscious processes nor material process, yet the enduring 
condition of a personal consciousness, is not a substitute for the 
soul, but the soul itself Parallelists are so occupied with pouring 
abuse on the old Cartesian metaphysical description of the soul, 
and in piling up the private adjectives about it, describing it as a 
" Seelenatom" a simple, undivided, inextended, immaterial, 
immortal atom, " ein unveranderliches, starres, absolut beharrliches 
Realitatspiinktchen," " ein Brockchen allgemeines Realitats- 
stoffes," ^ that they have no ears for any voice that attempts to 
build up the conception of the soul according to the principles 
upon which any other scientific hypothesis is properly fashioned. 

This difficulty of Psychical Monism may be briefly presented 
in another way, which supplements the foregoing statement. The 
doctrine lays it down clearly that " the existence of consciousness 
is our existence." Strong and Paulsen are equally explicit on this 
point, and it is clearly a necessary part of the doctrine. Well, then, 
I fall into profound dreamless sleep, or am stunned by a blow on 
the head, or spend an hour in deep chloroform narcosis. During 
this period I am unconscious and, therefore, according to this 
doctrine, I cease to exist. When I begin to be conscious again^ 
this is the appearance of a new consciousness, a new self, a new 
" aktuelle Seele." The absurdity of this statement is manifest. 
My personality, my self, all that is characteristic of and essential 
to me as a person, survives the period of unconsciousness. 
^ Paulsen, op. cit., p. 285. 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 167 

Therefore my consciousness is not myself, and its existence is not 
essential to my existence ; the continuance of my existence 
consists in the continuance of some other reality than my 
consciousness. Now, according to the doctrine, this other reality 
can only be some other consciousness or consciousnesses ; thus it 
is forced to the conclusion (absurd in itself, and opposed to its 
fundamental proposition that my consciousness is myself) that 
the continuance of my personality consists in the continuance of 
other consciousnesses than my own, that my existence, my self, 
is essentially consciousness other than my own, presumably a system 
of the streams of consciousness of other selves. 

\ The psychical monist, if he has ever pondered this implication 
of his doctrine, probably seeks to escape the difficulty by saying 
that when, after a period of unconsciousness, my stream of 
consciousness flows on again, it is not discontinuous with the 
stream that was cut short by chloroform ; he will say that my 
consciousness bridges the time-gap and feels and knows itself 
continuous across it. I do not think that this meets the difficulty. 
But to establish the objection, I will point out that in some 
cases, when consciousness returns after being abolished by a blow 
on the head, it does not feel itself to be continuous with the 
consciousness that preceded the blow ; the subject awakes like 
a new-born child, having no memory of his previous life, no sense 
of resuming or continuing it.^ Is, then, such a case really one 
of a new self, a new consciousness, the inception of a new 
" aktuelle Seele " ? Not at all ; for gradually, after a longer or 
shorter period of conscious life, the old memories return, the old 
ways of thinking, feeling, and doing return, until the old person- 
ality is completely restored. All which proves that the personality, 
the self, does not consist in the stream of consciousness alone, 
but that it consists in a far greater degree in those enduring stable 
conditions by which the stream of consciousness is at every 
moment determined. Again, I insist, the consistent psychical 
monist is forced to the absurd conclusion that my self is not 
my own consciousness, but the streams of consciousness of other 
selves.2 

^ The most remarkable recorded case of this sort is that of Mr Hanna, for 
which see " Multiple Personality," by B. Sidis and S. Goodhart. 

2 This inconsistency of Psychical Monism can hardly be better exhibited 
than by the quotation side by side of two sentences from Paulsen's chapter on 
" Wesen der Seele." The one, which is repeated again and again with slight 
variations, runs : " Die Seele ist die im Bewusstsein zur Einheit zusammenge- 



1 68 BODY AND MIND 

And here another difficulty may be touched upon, or per- 
haps rather the same difficulty in another form. My brain 
is said to be the phenomenon of which my consciousness is the 
reality. How, then, when I lie dead ? My brain, the phenomenon, 
will still be present for other men, and will still be the seat of 
many physical and chemical processes, and for many days it will 
lose nothing of its complex organisation. But what has become 
of its reality, my consciousness ? To this it may be answered : 
Only certain most highly specialized processes of the brain are the 
phenomena of which your consciousness is the reality. Then of 
what reality is the brain with its marvellously complex structure, 
and all its other processes, the appearance ? 

Or again, my brain, or part of it, is the appearance of my con- 
sciousness to other men. But no one has perceived my brain. 
Therefore, it is only a possibility of a phenomenon which has 
never been realized, a "permanent possibility of sensations" for other 
men. Suppose, then, that some one lays open my skull with the 
stroke of an axe ; the latent possibility of the phenomenon is then 
actualized, my brain appears to another man : but at the moment 
preceding the realization of that possibility, the reality which is 
to appear, namely my consciousness, has disappeared, has ceased 
to be. 

It may be noted, in passing, that these considerations 
present difficulties almost equally great to the other form of the 
identity-hypothesis, the " two-aspect-doctrine." For it is com- 
pelled to admit that that part of unknowable reality, which we 
are told manifests itself under the two forms of the stream of 
consciousness and the life of the brain of any person, continues 
to manifest itself as the brain-life, while its other and parallel mani- 
festation comes and goes intermittently. 

Yet another difficulty of Psychical Monism is its conception 
of the flowing together or composition of individual consciousnesses 
to form larger consciousnesses. The consciousnesses of men are 
held to run together into large streams of collective consciousness, 
civic and national consciousness, and so on ; and these again are 
said to combine with all infra-human consciousness on earth to form 
an earth-consciousness ; and this with the consciousness of other 
worlds, to form by successive stages of concurrence the all-inclusive 

fasste Vielheit seelischer Erlebnisse " (p. 145). The other runs : " Im Bewusstsein 
ist nur ein iiberaus geringer Teil des gesamten Seelenlebens, das wir doch voraus- 
setzen miissen, urn die Vorgiinge im Bewusstsein zu konstruieren " (p. 158). 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 169 

divine consciousness. Not only so, but each human being's con- 
sciousness is already vastly composite, being formed by the con- 
currence in successive stages of the consciousnesses of his nerve 
centres, his cells, his molecules, the atoms, the a and Q particles 
that compose the atoms, and so on indefinitely. 

If we pass over, without insistence on it, the fact that there 
is forthcoming no particle of empirical evidence of any such 
composition of human consciousness to form greater wholes of 
consciousness, two difficulties remain. Each consciousness or 
stream of consciousness exists in and for itself of its own right, 
for consciousness is reality ; yet each is used over and over again, 
first existing for itself, but also at the same time existing as an 
element in successively larger consciousnesses. This treatment 
of consciousness seems to me compatible only with the concep- 
tion of it as mind-stuff, as made up of ultimate atoms of con- 
sciousness ; a conception moulded upon our conception of matter, 
and inconsistent with the fundamental proposition of Psychical 
Monism that our consciousness, as we know it, is absolute reality. 
And how, apart from any question of the conditions that deter- 
mine it, can we conceive this flowing together of consciousness ? 
Has the phrase any meaning ? For my part, I think not. 
Suppose my consciousness is filled with the glory of colour of a 
sunset sky, while yours, as you lie near by under your motor-car, 
is filled with a problem in mechanics. What sort of a con- 
sciousness would these two make if compounded ? Presumbly a 
gorgeously coloured problem in mechanics. This is only one of 
the simplest forms of the difficulty. Confining ourselves to human 
consciousness on the earth, let us ask how all the pain and all 
the pleasure of human consciousnesses are to sum together. Do 
all the pains run together to make one big pain, and all the 
pleasures to make one big pleasure, and do these co-exist in the 
world-consciousness ? Or is it that, as in individual consciousness, 
the pain-producing influences and operations, and the pleasure- 
producing influences and operations, neutralize one another, if 
they are equal, or give an excess of pleasure over pain, if the one 
set of influences predominates ? If the latter is the case, then the 
pleasure or pain of the world consciousness, is not the sum of 
the pains and pleasures of human consciousnesses, but a resultant 
formed by their common action, a new pain or pleasure. 

The doctrine that consciousnesses flow together, each subsisting 
for itself and yet at the same time subsisting as a part of a larger 



I/O BODY AND MIND 

consciousness, implies, I submit, a substantialistic and even a 
materialistic view of consciousness ; it implies an atomistic con- 
sciousness, a mind-stuff that can be compounded in masses or 
scattered like powder, and still remain essentially unchanged. 
Such a view of consciousness is not only incompatible with the 
rejection of "substance," which is the strident keynote of Psychical 
Monism, but is inadmissible, no matter what our metaphysical 
views may be. It is plausible only to those who think of all 
consciousness and all psychical process as consisting in what we 
call the sensory content of consciousness ; for the sensory content 
does seem like a patchwork. But the sensory content and the 
sensations and images that compose it are abstractions only,, 
achieved by fixing our attention on one aspect of mental process. 
Sensations are merely incidents of the process of cognition, and 
no amount of compounding of sensations will result in an act of 
cognition, a knowing of an object ; still less will it produce a 
judgment, an inference, a train of reasoning, or an act of will. 

The foregoing discussions may be briefly resumed by saying 
that Psychical Monism leaves the most fundamental peculiarity 
of our experience entirely unexplained and unintelligible, the 
peculiarity namely 'that consciousness, as we know it, runs always 
and only in personal streams, the fact, in short, of personality. 
It describes the world as consisting of conscious processes forming 
one vast system of consciousness, every part of which is in 
functional relation with every other ; a unitary whole whose unity 
each of us can only conceive after the pattern of that unique 
wholeness or unity which he discovers to be the form of his 
personal consciousness ; and it leaves as an unrelieved mystery 
the fact, apparently incompatible with this conception of a world- 
consciousness, that the consciousness of which alone we have any 
knowledge occurs only in the form of personal consciousnesses^ 
which not only do not run together, but which seem to be 
absolutely and completely debarred from all direct communica- 
tion. It may be said at once that the alternative form of the 
identity-hypothesis leaves equally mysterious the fact of personality. 

We find, then, that the fundamental assumption of Psychical 
Monism, namely, that consciousness is reality and the only reality, 
and its attempt to abolish as illegitimate the conception of any 
mode of being other than consciousness, involve it in very great 
difficulties, not to say absurdities ; and this result will give force 
to the protest against any attempt to solve the psycho-physical 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 171 

problem by the metaphysical method, by setting out with any 
proposition as to the ultimate nature of reality. Without going 
so far as to condemn all attempts to describe the nature of reality, 
we may fairly protest that the powers of the human mind 
are so little suited to achieve knowledge of absolute reality, that 
our conclusions in this direction must be of a tentative character ; 
and that it is absurd to profess to decide the question as to 
the existence of the soul by deduction from any assertion as to^ 
the nature of reality. To attempt to decide any question of fact 
by setting out from an assertion as to the nature of ultimate 
reality, is to practise metaphysic in the way which has brought 
it into disrepute with the majority of thinking men in almost 
all ages. 

Let us now glance at certain difficulties common to all forms 
of Parallelism. They all alike imply universal psycho-physical 
Parallelism or Pan-psychism ; they necessarily assume that every 
physical event, the mere fall of a stone to the ground, the rotation 
of the earth, the vibratory movements of an atom, the flight of 
the solar system through space, the swaying of a dead leaf on a 
bough, that all these and all other physical events have their 
psychical correlates, or aspects, or underlying realities, just as well 
as those obscure changes in certain restricted portions of our 
brains, which alone seem on the face of things to be thus accom- 
panied. And they imply also that every psychical event has its 
physical correlate or manifestation, that every thought or volition 
of God, if there be a God who thinks and wills, manifests itself 
under the form of physical processes subject to mechanical laws. 
These implications of Parallelism are not always fully grasped by 
those who accept the doctrine ; yet, in any form less thorough- 
going than this, it is so fragmentary and inconsistent as not to be 
worth a moment's consideration, and its principal exponents have, 
of course, fully acknowledged and insisted upon these implications. 
" All things," says Paulsen, " are psycho-physical beings." 

If, with these implications in mind, we compare the doctrine 
with Animism in respect to the strain it throws upon the imagina- 
tion, it must be admitted that the advantage lies with Animism, 
in spite of all the conundrums it raises as regards the nature, 
origin, and destiny of souls. But this is a point of minor import- 
ance. The serious difficulty raised by this implication of Parallelism 
may be stated, as follows. The rich complex consciousness of man 



172 BODY AND MIND 

is correlated with the processes of an enormously complex and 
highly developed nervous system. When we survey the scale of 
animal life, we see that the lower down we go in the scale the simpler 
becomes the structure of the nervous system, until we come to 
simple creatures in which it consists of only a few cells but par- 
tially differentiated from the rest of the body ; and finally we 
come to the unicellular creatures each consisting of a mere speck 
of nucleated protoplasm. We have good reason to believe that, if 
we could observe the consciousness of the animals throughout this 
descending scale, we should find that the stream of consciousness 
becomes poorer and thinner in proportion as the nervous system 
is less developed. Now, it is sufficiently difficult for us to con- 
ceive the nature of the psychical life of such an animal as a fish ; 
it would seem to consist in mere sentiency and appetite. But, 
when we go down into the invertebrate world, the nervous system, 
and indeed the whole organism, becomes indefinitely simpler ; to 
conceive of a corresponding reduction in complexity and richness 
of the psychical life is difficult. We can conceive the consciousness 
of the animalcule as at most but a mere alternation of the vaguest 
possible feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction or unrest. But 
when on the physical side we pass over from the animalcule to 
the molecule of inorganic matter, or to the gravitating atom or 
particle of negative electricity, or whatever the unit physical 
phenomenon may be, we cross an interval in the scale of complexity 
of organization as great as that between man and the animalcule. 
How, then, are we to conceive consciousness to be correspondingly 
reduced. To attempt any such further reduction of the concept of 
individual experience (innerer Erlebniss), of psychical existence or 
process, is to deprive it of all content, to leave the words empty 
of all meaning. 

In order to meet this difficulty, Fechner adopted the fashion, 
first introduced perhaps by Leibnitz, of speaking of unconscious 
psychical processes, unconscious sensations and ideas (Unbewusst- 
sein, unbewusste Empfindungen, unbewusste Vorstellungen),^ 
and spoke of the assumed psychical aspect or reality underlying 
the physical processes of the inorganic world as unconscious 
psychical processes. Other Parallelists have used other terms in 
■order to diminish this difficulty ; Lloyd Morgan, for example, 
prefers to use the word ' infra-consciousness,' and Clifford, as we 
have seen, spoke of a mind-stuff which is not consciousness, but 
1 "Elemente der Psycho-physik," vol. ii., p. 43S. 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 173 

of small pieces of which the most elementary feelings are com- 
posed ; but the expression most in favour is perhaps subconscious- 
ness. Parallelism, then, involves the assumption of a vast amount 
of unconscious psychical process. Is this a valid conception ? 
We start from the unity of individual experience or consciousness,, 
and we discover the necessity of postulating existences which par- 
tially determine the course of that experience, and these we call 
our environment ; this environment is directly apprehended by us- 
only under the form of material objects or physical processes ; we 
thus arrive at the conception of processes of two fundamentally 
different kinds, conscious process and physical process. Then the 
parallelist finds himself compelled, in order to carry through his 
scheme, to postulate a third kind of process of which, from the 
nature of the case, we can never have any experience, whether 
direct or indirect. Thus the endeavour after reduction of Dualism 
to Monism really results in the assumption of a third kind of exist- 
ence or process which is as utterly unlike conscious process as are 
the processes described by physical science. But, in order to cast 
a veil over the questionable transaction and to create the illusion 
that the third kind of process is not so very unlike conscious- 
process, the parallelist calls it unconscious psychical process. 
Now I do not wish to deny the propriety of the conception of 
unconscious, still less of subconscious, psychical process ; the; 
conception is perfectly compatible with, and perhaps even de- 
manded by. Animism. But my point is, that the attempt to 
identify unconscious psychical process with consciousness is a 
mere play upon words. The psychical monist begins by using 
psychical process as synonymous with conscious process, and goes 
on to use psychical as a term of wider connotation than conscious- 
ness (as the animist properly and consistently may), hoping,, 
by speaking of unconscious psychical process, to avoid the bad 
impression that must be made by speaking of unconscious con- 
scious process. Psychical Monism, whose fundamental proposition 
is that all that exists is consciousness, is of course the variety of 
Monism which is hit most hard by any refusal to recognize the 
possibility of unconscious consciousness, or to admit the legitimacy 
of describing the evolution of consciousness, in the individual and 
in the race, as a process of aggregation of unconscious processes. 

Again, the hypothesis of psycho-physical parallelism, whether 
it stands by itself or is supported by the identity-hypothesis in 
either of its two forms, is confronted by the difficulty that, while- 



174 BODY AND MIND 

the physical processes are mechanically determined, psychical 
processes are essentially teleological ; so that mechanical and 
teleological determination have to be represented as running 
exactly parallel and issuing always in the same results. In a 
later chapter I shall say something of the necessity of believing 
in the reality of teleological determination of mental process ; 
but here it suffices to point out that this is not denied by most of 
the philosophical defenders of Parallelism. Wundt and Paulsen, 
for example, are agreed upon this, and Strong urges that one of 
the chief merits of Psychical Monism is that it satisfies our deep- 
rooted conviction of the real efficiency of consciousness. In fact, 
to give up the validity of either mechanical explanation of 
physical processes or the teleological explanation of mental 
process would be to sacrifice the claim of Monism to reconcile 
natural science and philosophy. 

The same difficulty recurs in still more urgent form in con- 
nexion with our higher mental processes, which are not only 
teleological but also logical. The parallelist has to believe that 
purely mechanical determination runs parallel with logical process 
and issues in the same results. He has to believe, or at any rate 
assert, that every form of human activity and every product of human 
activity is capable of being mechanically explained. Consider, then, 
a page of print ; the letters and words of a logical argument are 
impressed upon the page by a purely mechanical process. But 
what has determined their order ? Their order is such that, when 
an adequately educated person reads the lines, he takes the meaning 
of the words and sentences, follows the reasoning and is led to, 
and forced to accept, the logical conclusion. And in ordering the 
words and sentences the author was conscious of their meaning, 
of the drift of the whole argument and of the conclusion to 
which it leads, and was animated by the purpose or desire of 
achieving the end, the demonstration in black and white of the con- 
clusion of the argument ; and throughout the period of composition 
his choice of words and order was determined by this purpose, by 
the desire to achieve an end, a result, which existed only in his 
consciousness. Now the parallelist necessarily maintains that all 
this process of ordering the words and sentences, in which the 
consciousness of their meaning and of their logical connexion and 
of the conclusion and purpose of the whole argument seem to 
play so important a part, that all this is in principle capable of 
being fully explained as the outcome of the mechanical interplay 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 175 

of the author's brain-processes : that a complete description of the 
mechanics of these processes would be a complete explanation of 
the ordering of the letters, words, and sentences. This is what I, 
in common with many others, find incredible, namely, the assertion 
that the meaning of the words need not be taken into account in 
explaining the way they were brought into their order on the 
page. The parallelist will assert that the author's consciousness of 
meaning had as its physical correlate some complex system of brain- 
processes, and that this was the causal mechanism that we have to 
conceive as ordering the words by governing the movement of 
the author's hand as he wrote them down. This then raises the 
question of empirical fact, — Is there or is there not any complete 
physical brain-correlate of that part of our consciousness which we 
call meaning ? 

Or suppose the printed page to bear a poem containing 
original and delicate similes ; for example : 

" Music that gentlier on the spirit lies 
Than tired eye-lids upon tired eyes." 

We are asked to believe that the ordering of these words can 
be mechanically explained-. We have, then, to suppose a mechanism 
so delicate that it is capable of being affected by the resemblance 
between " tired eyelids upon tired eyes " and " gentle music," or 
at least of reacting in the same way to both, namely, with the 
production of the sound of the word " gentle " ; for the meaning 
of the word gentle is here the essential factor in bringing these 
unlike things together in the consciousness of the poet. Here we 
come back again to the essential question — Can " meaning " be 
supposed to have its physical correlate in the brain ? To this 
question I propose to return later and show reason to believe that 
no such correlate can be assumed. At present I merely urge the 
incredibility of the assumption that the "meaning" itself can be 
left out, when we seek to explain the ordering of our words in 
thinking, in writing, or in speaking. 

Paulsen maintains the parallelism of the mechanically with the 
logically and teleologically determined series, and he illustrates 
his view in the following way. " An orator makes a speech ; he 
has been attacked, he desires to defend himself and annihilate 
his opponent, thoughts and arguments flow in, similes and apt 
turns of speech, biting phrases and quotations, sarcasms against 
his opponent and flatterings of his hearers, seem to come of 



176 BODY AND MIND 

themselves. It is the link of association by which each thought 
drags up its successor (i.e. a mechanically operative link) ; but, 
at each moment, of thousands of possible associative links only 
that one which leads to the goal actually operates. Thus the 
whole series of processes constituting the oration is both causally 
and teleologically conditioned ; the will gives it its general direction 
and feels a lively satisfaction in the successful progress." ^ The 
interactionist could not describe the process in terms more in 
accordance with his view ; at every step the mechanical factor, 
the system of materially conditioned links of association, presents 
a number of rival possibilities, and at each step that one of these 
mechanically conditioned associations which is most suitable to the 
purpose of the orator is brought into operation by the psychical 
teleological factor, his will or purpose. On the face of it, then, the 
series of events is determined by the co-operation of the material 
mechanical factors and the psychical teleological factors. But, 
when Paulsen says that the whole series is both causally and 
teleologically conditioned, he means that the causal and the 
teleological processes are the same identical processes looked at 
in two different ways. How then does he seek to render 
intelligible this identity of mechanical causation and teleo- 
logical determination ? He achieves it by making them both 
purely subjective, by depriving both conceptions of all objective 
validity, and falling back upon Hume's doctrine that causation is 
merely sequence. " If one holds the right notion of causality, 
if one understands by it, with Hume and Leibnitz, nothing more 
than lawfulness, i.e. regular concomitance of the changes of many 
elements, then it is obvious that causality holds good of the spiritual 
mental world no less than of the natural." ^ Hence mechanical 
causation and teleological determination being alike merely 
subjective, i.e. applicable only within our conceptual descriptions 
of the real world and not operative in the real world, " there can 
occur no opposition between mechanical explanation and idealistic 
interpretation," ^ The solipsistic character of this escape is well 
revealed in the following passage. " I do not see what should 
prevent our saying, the logical operation of thought is presented 
physically in a brain-process, which according to the assumption 
is to be regarded as a part of the course of nature following 
physical laws. The brain would not therefore become a calculat- 

^ " Einleitung," p. 241. ^ " Einleitung," p. 243. 

^ " Einleitung," p. 181. 



EXAMINATION OF THE AUTOMATON THEORIES 177 

ing machine, but we are led to the thought that there obtains a 
kind of pre-estabHshed harmony between logical and physical 
laws : a thought before which we do not shrink, for the material 
world is, according to our assumption, not something absolutely 
foreign to the spirit ; it is after all its own creation (sein Produkt)." ^ 

Wundt's reconciliation of the universal sway of mechanical 
causation with teleological determination is very similar. He 
writes — "The universality of mechanical causation is an assumption 
which needs to be verified by experience. The supposition that 
there obtain different modes of connexion, equivocal and 
unequivocal, in different provinces of nature, cannot therefore be 
rejected as logically impossible. But then for these provinces un- 
equivocal mechanical causality does not hold good, and the assertion 
that both modes of connexion may be combined in one series of 
phenomena is inadmissible in all cases. Final causes and mechanical 
causes are mutually exclusive." ^ And again he writes, " the 
teleologically conditioned cannot be at the same time mechanically 
conditioned." It might be thought that in face of these explicit 
statements, Wundt would find it impossible to maintain Parallelism 
and its implication that all events must be regarded as both 
mechanically caused and teleologically determined. But, like 
Paulsen, he succeeds in maintaining Parallelism at the cost of the 
reality of all causation or determination by falling back upon Hume; 
thus — -" the difference between teleological and causal conception is 
not an objectively valid difference (kein sachlicher) that divides 
the content of experience into two unlike provinces ; but the two 
ways of conceiving things are formally different only, so that to 
every purposive relation there belongs a causal connexion as its 
complement, and conversely a teleological form can be given, if 
required, to every causal connexion." ^ Cause and effect, goal and 
effort, are nothing more than the projection into the world of 
objective reality of ground and consequence, which exist only for 
our thought and are connected only by a logical band ; and, since 
the ground can be inferred from the consequence as readily as 
the consequence from the ground, the two ways of describing 
phenomenal sequences are equally valid. 

Thus the parallelists seek to escape from this difficulty. They 
are determined to eat their cake and to hold it, to accept the 

^ " Einleitung," p. 100. 

2 " Physiologische Psychologie," vol. iii. p. 728. 

3 Op. cit., vol. iii. p. 737. 



178 BODY AND MIND 

dictum of science that all events are mechanically caused as well 
as the dictum of philosophy that mind operates effectively to 
achieve its purposes. But they can only do this at the cost of 
denying the applicability to reality of our conceptions both of 
mechanical causation and of purposive striving, at the cost, that 
is to say, of sinking back into Solipsism ; for only by the aid of 
the principle of causation can each of us infer any reality other 
than his own consciousness. 



CHAPTER XIII 

IS THERE ANY WAY OF ESCAPE FROM THE DILEMMA- 
ANIMISM OR PARALLELISM? 

N the foregoing pages we have seen how the development of 
the natural sciences has led to the rejection of Animism by 
the greater part of the learned world of our time. In the 
two preceding chapters we have stated and examined the prin- 
cipal formulations of the psycho-physical relation proposed as 
substitutes for Animism ; and we have found that these also are 
confronted with very serious difficulties, difficulties which, though 
they do not leap to the eye as do those of Animism, are never- 
theless so great as to forbid us to accept any one of these formu- 
lations as an intelligible solution of the psycho-physical problem. 
We must, therefore, at this stage of our inquiry, raise the question 
— Are the automaton hypotheses (epiphenomenalism and the 
parallelistic doctrines) the only alternatives to Animism ? Or, 
putting aside Epiphenomenalism as untenable, we may ask. Are 
we confronted with the dilemma — Animism or Parallelism ? 

\This inquiry is the more necessary in an English treatise, 
because the lack of interest in the psycho-physical problem 
on the part of most of our academic philosophers seems to imply 
on their part the opinion that the question may be answered 
with a negation. I believe that, in fact, many of our idealistic 
philosophers hold, somewhat vaguely, no doubt, the opinion that 
Kant's epistemology has rendered the psycho-physical problem 
unreal, has shown that the problem only arises through asking a 
question which never should have been asked. They tell us that 
all thinkers of the pre-critical period and those who, since Kant, 
still persist in inquiring into the relations between mind and matter, 
between soul and body, have taken up the question from a false 
starting-point ; that, namely, they have accepted uncritically the 
notions of soul and body current in popular thought ; that these 
notions were achieved by illegitimate processes of abstraction ; and 
that, if, instead of doing this, we begin, as Kant did, by making an 

179 



i8o BODY AND MIND 

impartial epistemological inquiry, we shall find that this insoluble 
problem never arises. 

It might suffice to reply to these insinuations, as follows. 
We admit that, when we reflect upon the nature of experience, 
we find immediately given neither body nor mind, but only the 
duality of subject and object within the unity of experience ; and 
we admit that the conceptions of body and mind are arrived at 
by abstracting from this unity of experience, on the one hand the 
objective and on the other hand the subjective elements. Never- 
theless, we do not admit that these processes of abstraction are 
illegitimate ; rather we affirm that they are necessary steps for 
each one of us, if he is to reach out in thought beyond the circle 
of his own experience and play a part as a member of a world of 
spirits, which, as you tell us, is the only real world.^ He who refuses 
to make this step, a step which cannot be justified in strict logic, 
remains a solipsist. With the solipsist we cannot argue ; but all 
of us are agreed that Solipsism is an impossible attitude for a sane 
man. We affirm that each of us can escape from Solipsism only 
by an act of faith or will that posits a I'eal world, of which he 
is a member. This real world appears to each of us in the 
form of the phenomena of sense-perception ; but, if he is not to 
remain a solipsist, he must affirm and believe that these appear- 
ances are not created by himself, but are rather due to influences 
or existences, not himself, yet affecting him. Or, in other words, 
he must believe in the validity of the category of causation ; for 
only by believing that his perceptions are caused by some in- 
fluence, some real being, other than himself, can he escape from 
Solipsism. Let him conceive these influences or existences how 
he will, and the psycho-physical problem still confronts him and 

^ Avenarius has described the process by which we pass from the unity of 
experience to the duahty of subject and object, to the conception of the subjective 
and objective- as psychical and physical worlds, and has named it the process 
of introjection {Der menschliche Weltbegriff). This doctrine of introjection 
seems to be regarded in some quarters as constituting a proof of the unten- 
ability of psycho-physical dualism ; but, however true it may be as an abstract 
and generalized account of the way in which the human mind has arrived at the 
distinction of the physical from the psychical, it does nothing to invalidate 
that distinction. As Prof. A. E. Taylor has well said, " To attempt the solution 
of this problem by simply reverting to the standpoint of immediate experience, 
as it was before the creation of the concept of a physical order, would be to undo 
at a stroke the whole previous work of our physical scientific constructions. 
From the standpoint of immediate experience there can be no problem of the 
connexion between the physical and the psychical" ("Mind," vol. xiii. p. 481). 



THE DILEMMA i8i 

clamours for an answer. For among these appearances is that 
which he calls his body, one among many similar appearances, 
and this appearance points to some reality beyond it, and the 
psycho-physical problem is — What is the relation of my thinking 
self to this reality beyond ? He may accept Berkeley's suggestion, 
to the effect that the body and all other appearances are produced 
in his thought by the direct action of God, a pure spirit or think- 
ing being like himself; but, even if he brings himself seriously to 
believe that God has chosen to play this monstrous joke upon 
mankind, he is but solving the psycho-physical problem by arbi- 
trarily choosing a peculiar and dogmatic form of Animism. 

Or let him, with Herbert Spencer, affirm that this reality is 
unknowable ; his need is then all the more urgent for some under- 
standing of his relation to the appearances of which his body is 
one, since these appearances are all he can ever know. 

Or, if he holds that we must be content to affirm that this reality 
is of the nature of mind or spirit or consciousness, without further 
specifying it, then he still must discover the nature of the relation 
between his own consciousness or mind and that other conscious- 
ness which appears to him under the form of his body. 

But this preliminary inquiry is so important for the whole 
course of our subsequent discussion that it seems worth while to 
examine the modes of dealing with the psycho-physical problem 
followed by several eminent idealistic philosophers. And, first, 
we may examine Kant's own treatment of it. 

According to Kant, the body belongs to the phenomenal 
world, which we know through the faculty of sentience and 
understanding ; within this world of phenomena the law of 
mechanical causation holds unbroken sway, yet this world, the 
viundus sensibilis, has but empirical reality. The understanding, 
contemplating this phenomenal world, may infer the existence of 
some noumenon, some thing-for-itself, of which it is the appear- 
ance, but is unable to make any affirmation concerning it other 
than the bare affirmation of its existence. By means of a higher 
faculty, the practical reason, we discover the existence of a world 
of superior reality, the niundus intelligibilis ; to this world belongs 
the soul of man, the pure ego, which is the logical nature that 
comprises both understanding and reason. 

Now it is clear that the recognition of the truth that the 
physical world as we peixeive it, or as it appears to us, is an 
appearance, does not abolish the psycho-physical problem, so 



182 BODY AND MIND 

long as, with Kant, we hold that this appearance is an appear- 
ance of something. What is the relation of my thinking self to 
the thing-for-itself which appears to me as the physical world in 
space and time ? This question still presses for an answer just 
as urgently as if we accept the crude realist's view of the physical 
world. And especially, if we accept Kant's demonstration of the 
soul as an immortal being, we wish to know what is the relation 
of the soul to the thing-for-itself Kant, in short, has left us 
with two kinds of reality, empirical reality and rational reality ; 
with two real worlds, one ruled by mechanical causation, the other 
a world of freedom and purpose ; and he has not shown us how they 
are related. Kant even wrote : " The separation of soul and body 
forms the termination of the sensible exercise of our faculty of 
knowledge, and the beginning of the intellectual. The body would 
thus be regarded, not as the cause of thought, but merely as its. 
restrictive condition, and at the sam.e time as promotive of the 
sensuous and animal, but therefore the greater hindrance to the 
pure and spiritual life." ^ And Kant's suggestion of phenomenal- 
istic Parallelism as the solution of the psycho-physical , problem 
shows that he himself was aware that the problem remained in 
spite of his epistemological Phenomenalism. 

Kant, in fact, made an elaborate attempt to show how we may 
run with the hare and yet hunt with the hounds. Confronted with 
eighteenth-century Materialism and Hume's Scepticism on the one 
hand, and with the dogmatic Spiritualism of orthodox philosophy 
on the other hand, he boldly accepted the methods and results of 

^ I quote this passage from "The DiscipHne of Pure Reason in Relation to 
Hypothesis," after Paulsen, who affirms that it continued to represent Kant's view 
in his critical period (" Immanuel Kant, his Life and Doctrine," p. 254). 

Kant wrote also, "The opinion that the thinking subject may be able to 
think before having any relation with bodies may be expressed as follows : that 
before the beginning of that kind of sense-perception through which things 
appear in space, the same transcendental objects, which in our present condition 
appear to us as bodies, may have been capable of being perceived in some quite 
different manner. But the opinion that the soul may continue to think after 
the breaking off of all relations with the bodily world may be stated in this way : 
that, if that kind of sensory perception through which transcendental and hitherto 
quite unknown objects appear to us as the material world, should cease, then 
nevertheless all perception of the world would not necessarily cease ; and it is 
quite possible that these unknown objects might continue to be cognized by the 
thinking subject, although, of course, no longer in the guise of bodies. Now no 
one can adduce from speculative principles the least ground for such an 
assertion, not even show the possibility of it, but merely assume it ; but just 
as little also can anyone make any vaUd dogmatic objection to the assertion " 
{" Kritik d. r. V.," Erdmann's edition, p. 338). 



THE DILEMMA 183 

both — the world of mechanically determined phenomena, which 
is the natural issue of Materialism modified by Scepticism, and 
the world of pure and free Spirits which dogmatic metaphysic 
affirmed ; and he sought to justify our belief in the existence of 
both worlds by dividing our intellect into two distinct faculties. 
Thus he achieved a dualism of the intellect with a corresponding 
duality of unrelated worlds, which surely is the least defensible of 
all forms of dualism. Nor can Kant be given even the credit 
of consistent adherence to this strange doctrine ; for, in spite of 
his insistence on the absolute sway of mechanical principles in 
the phenomenal world, when he has occasion to treat of organic 
beings he asserts that they are not to be understood or wholly 
accounted for on mechanical principles. If this assertion is con- 
sidered in connexion with Kant's metaphysic of the soul, it will 
be seen that Animism might with some plausibility be added to 
the long list of doctrines for which his interpreters seek to make 
him responsible. 

It is clear, at least, that Kant did not discover any way of 
a'^^iding the necessity of accepting either Animism or one of the 
parallelistic formulations of the psycho-physical problem, but that 
he hovered uncertainly between these alternatives. 

Kant's successors have made many attempts to show how the 
defects of his doctrine may be remedied. Three principal groups 
may be distinguished. On the one hand are those who, like 
Paulsen and Strong, have accepted the thing-for-itself and, 
resolutely facing the psycho-physical problem, have attempted to 
provide a satisfactory solution of it by developing the notion of 
psycho-physical Parallelism ; on the other hand are those who would 
purify Kant's doctrine by throwing overboard the thing-for-itself, 
left by him lurking behind the veil of phenomena, and would thus 
achieve a pure Spiritual Idealism ; while a third party, accepting, 
like the first, the thing-for-itself, admits all the conclusions of 
Materialism or its modern equivalent, Epiphenomenalism, and 
seeks to retain the ideal world only as the creation of human 
fancy, a purely imaginary world to which the human mind may 
withdraw itself from time to time for moral uplifting and refresh- 
ment and the enjoyment of the illusion of freedom, as a child 
gives itself up to the delightful illusions of fairyland. F. A. 
Lange, who is generally recognized as the leader of the Neo- 
Kantians, may be said to be the principal exponent of this last 
form of Idealism ; for, although he wavers unsteadily between the 



1 84 BODY AND MIND 

acceptance and rejection of the thing-for-itself, and seems bent 
on combining Materialism and Solipsism in his creed, he asserts 
explicitly that the human spirit must soar above the vulgar real 
(by which he means the world of the natural sciences) into the 
realm of ideas which are symbols of the unknowable absolute. 

Those philosophers who belong to the second class of post- 
Kantians mentioned above indignantly repudiate Lange's inter- 
pretation of Kant as a vulgar debasement of his teaching.^ Let us 
see, then, how one of the most eminent of this school proposes to 
refine upon Kant's doctrine in a way which will circumvent the 
psycho- physical problem and avoid the necessity of choosing 
between Animism and Parallelism or Epiphenomenalism. 
Professor James Ward has recently essayed this task in his 
Gififord Lectures.^ 

After an elaborate destructive criticism of Naturalism and its 
central tenet, psycho-physical Parallelism, and after offering a 
refutation of Dualism, Professor Ward proceeds to set up in their 
place a spiritualistic Monism which shall be a pure Idealism, in the 
sense that it shall regard the physical world as a mere construction 
or figment of the mind, and which shall nevertheless escape the 
charge of Solipsism. By a train of lucid and irrefutable epistemo- 
logical reasoning he shows " that Nature, as zve conceive it^ is 
neither primary nor independent and complete in itself ; that it is, 
on the contrary, merely an abstract scheme ; and that, as such, it 
necessarily presupposes intellectual constructiveness and motives 
to sustain the labours that such construction entails." ^ 

Now this result of epistemological reflexion is valid as a 
demonstration of the illegitimacy of deducing the impotence and 
nullity of mind and purpose from the law of the conservation of 
energy or from any other generalization of the empirical sciences ; 
but it does not justify the reduction of the physical world to the 
status of a figment of the imagination. The statement I have 
quoted is only true in virtue of the phrase which is printed in 
italics, namely, " as we conceive it." But Professor Ward's 

^ E.g. the late Prof. Adamson, in his " Lectures on Kant." 
2 "NaturaHsm and Agnosticism," London, 1899. I am not sure whether 
Prof. Ward regards his doctrine as providing an escape from the dilemma — 
Aniraism or Parallelism ; but it has recently been proclaimed as an alternative to 
them by Miss E. C. Jones ("Hibbert Journal," Oct. 1910). I imagine that Prof. 
Ward would admit the propriety of Animism as a working hypothesis in 
biological and psychological science. 

^ Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 247. The itahcs are mine. 



THE DILEMMA 185 

argument implies that it should be regarded as true though that 
phrase were omitted ; for unless the statement is accepted in this 
sense, the whole argument falls to the ground. That is to say, 
Professor Ward, like other idealists of this school, shows that our 
idea of Nature is only our idea of Nature, and draws from this the 
conclusion that Nature itself, or the physical universe, exists only 
as a construction of our minds, or is altogether dependent on, and 
secondary to, mind. This is the fatal error of idealisms of this 
type. The epistemological reasoning shows not that Nature zV, 
but only that it viay be, merely a construction of our minds ; 
that is to say, it shows that there is no strictly logical 
process by which we can be compelled to admit that the 
physical world really exists otherwise than in our thought, and 
that we may without logical inconsistency refuse to believe 
that it has any other mode of existence. Now it must be 
frankly recognized, as I said before, that each one of us can 
escape from Solipsism only by affirming the real existence of Nature, 
or by affirming the validity of the category of causation, which 
enables each of us to infer a world of existing things other than 
himself playing its part in the causation of *his perceptions. But 
if anyone can discover any other mode of escape from Solipsism, 
he may, with perfect propriety, regard the physical world as exist- 
ing only in or for thought. This is the alternative proposed by 
Professor Ward. He is content to deny all extra-mental exist- 
ence to the physical world, because he believes he has discovered 
that one may escape from Solipsism by a different road, namely, 
by recognizing that the physical world is not merely subjective, 
but is trans-subjective. By calling the physical world trans- 
subjective, he means to imply that it exists, not only for the 
thought of the individual thinker, but for the thought of men in 
general ; and that the conception of it has been achieved, not by 
the thought of any one human mind, but by " intersubjective inter- 
course," i.e., by the united efforts and converse of many minds. 
By recognizing this fact he escapes the grossest absurdity of the 
solipsist, the assumption that he alone exists ; and he escapes also 
the solipsist's assumption that, if he himself should cease to be, 
the whole physical universe would also cease to be ; for it would 
remain as the conception of other minds. This, then, is the way 
in which Professor Ward proposes to escape from the dilemma of 
choosing between Solipsism and the acceptance of the physical 
world as extra-mental reality. The position proposed is certainly 



1 86 BODY AND MIND 

preferable to Solipsism ; but it has two fatal weaknesses : first, it 
retains much of the absurdity of Solipsism ; secondly, it is reached 
only by an illegitimate step. Ward himself says of it : " Inter- 
subjective intercourse secures us against the Solipsism into which 
individual experience by itself might conceivably fall, but it does 
not carry us beyond the wider solipsism of Kant's consciousness 
in general." That is to say, it involves the assumption that all 
the objects of the natural sciences are purely mythical ; that the 
astronomers, who accurately foretell eclipses and the reappearance 
of comets after the lapse of centuries, are foretelling merely the 
moment at which men in general will, through some miraculous 
process, aided presumably by " intersubjective intercourse," agree 
to perceive the comet or the onset of the eclipse ; that of the 
whole series of geological formations each one first came into 
being when it was discovered, or perhaps at the moment at which 
it was named and officially recognized by the Royal Society ; 
that the story of the evolution of the organic world has no more 
objective truth than any extravagant nature-myth which has been 
widely entertained by any savage people ; and so on and so on. 
Clearly, the impetus of Professor Ward's spirited attack on 
Naturalism has carried him too far and led him " to pour out the 
child with the water." An Idealism that demands the acceptance 
of such conclusions will always remain impotent to heal the 
breach between science and religion. 

But, even if these conclusions were entirely acceptable, we 
-should still have to complain of the method by which they are 
reached. Like Berkeley before him. Professor Ward has simply 
assumed the existence of other spirits than his own : and his position 
is less satisfactory than Berkeley's ; for the great idealist did at 
least infer the existence of God from the evidence that our minds 
are the recipients of external influences. Each of us learns to 
recognize the existence of other human minds only through 
sense-perception of the manifestations of their activities in the 
phenomenal world ; and, if we deny all extra-mental causes ^ to 
these sense-perceptions, we have no means of passing beyond the 
sphere of individual experience to the existence of other minds ; 
we must, in short, remain solipsists pure and simple. Or does 
Professor Ward mean that " intersubjective intercourse " is main- 
tained by direct action of mind on mind, and that all our sense^ 
perceptions are induced by such direct action of one human mind oo 
1 I mean causes extraneous to the mind of the percipient. 



THE DILEMMA 187 

another, as in the alleged telepathic induction of hallucinations ? 
This seems to be, in fact, the position he means to maintain ; if so, 
it resembles Berkeley's, but with this difference, that whereas 
Berkeley inferred the existence of God as the cause of his own 
perceptions and was unable to infer the reality of other human 
spirits. Ward infers the existence of other human spirits, but is 
unable to get to God. Which position is preferable must remain 
a question of taste ; but it is obvious that though in both cases 
the psycho-physical problem is in a sense transcended, yet for 
empirical science it is answered in the sense of Animism ; for 
that part of the phenomenal world which appears to me as my 
body represents or symbolizes a certain system of influences 
exerted directly upon me by the divine spirit (Berkeley), or by 
other human spirits (Ward) ; and what science calls the voluntary 
movements of my body are changes of the appearance of myself 
to other spirits (or spirit) directly induced in them by that mode 
of activity of my soul or spirit which we call volition. 

Thus we see that Idealism, consistently worked out, justifies 
Animism as the solution of the psycho-physical problem which 
must be adopted by empirical science. But, since it rejects the 
demand of Kant's epistemology and of Naturalism, the demand, 
namely, that in the physical world mechanical causation shall 
rule without exception, and since it involves the reduction of 
all the results of the natural sciences to the level of pure myth, 
it would seem that a sober Realism, which accepts Animism, 
offers a better prospect of reconciling science with the belief in 
the efficiency of mind and purpose. As for the Idealism which 
sets out with the dictum that all the phenomena and processes 
of nature must be explained according to purely mechanical 
principles (whether this dictum be maintained as an epistemo- 
logical principle, as by Kant, or as a conclusion forced upon our 
acceptance by the successes of empirical science, as by Paulsen)^ 
nothing remains for it but the desperate attempt to save some- 
thing from the wreck of religion and philosophy by the aid of 
the hypothesis of psycho-physical Parallelism. 

I conclude, then, that there is no way of escape from the 
dilemma — Animism or Parallelism, and that we must accept 
Animism, if we find the difficulties involved in Parallelism to be 
fatal to it. Some of these difficulties were displayed in the 
foregoing chapter ; in later chapters the fundamental assumption 
of Parallelism, namely, that the course of nature can be explained 



1 88 BODY AND MIND 

or described in terms of mechanism only, will be shown to be 
unwarranted and untenable. 

Before going on to this refutation of Parallelism, I shall try- 
to prepare the reader for the acceptance of its alternative by 
showing that neither the arguments against Animism, nor those 
directly supporting Parallelism, are of a nature to compel accept- 
ance of their conclusion. And I shall deal first with the alogical 
arguments. 



CHAPTER XIV 
ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 

WE have seen that Parallelism is urged upon our accept- 
ance by certain argunienta ad hominein. In this, 
chapter I propose to examine these and to show that 
arguments of a similar kind, which deserve at least as much 
consideration, can be adduced in favour of Animism. 

Of the arguments of this kind urged in favour of Parallelism 
(more especially of Psychical Monism), the most important is 
that the hypothesis allows us to accept all the materialistic 
teachings of natural science, while retaining our belief in the 
primacy and reality of mind ; that it thus would abolish all strife 
between science and philosophy, because, as men of science, we 
shall be materialists, while as philosophers we may be spiritualists 
or idealists ; it is proposed, in short, to establish a parallelism 
without interaction of science and philosophy. Now we all know 
men who keep their science and their religion in separate " water- 
tight compartments " of their minds, and many of us may be 
inclined to approve, or at least to excuse, this arrangement.-^ But 
what shall we say of the deliberate attempt to do the same with 
our scientific and our philosophical convictions ; for that is the 
essence of Parallelism. Surely this is Dualism of a kind that is- 
radically unsound and reprehensible. If science had finally and 
completely established the truth of its postulate of the universal 
sway of the laws of mechanism and physical causation, we might 
regard the efforts of the parallelists as a meritorious attempt to^ 
save something from the wreck of philosophical and religious 
beliefs. But so long as this postulate remains very far from 
empirical verification, and in fact is carried over from the 
inorganic world to the world of life and mind, only at the cost 
of flying in the face of all the many unmistakable indications 
that the two realms are widely different, why should the philo- 

^ Mr W. H. Mallock has even written a brilliant book (" Religion as a Credible 
Doctrine ") in order to recommend this solution. 

189 



I90 BODY AND MIND 

sopher or the biologist capitulate to physical science and lay 
himself out to give plausibility to its extortionate claim that all 
existence must be brought under its laws ? For a capitulation 
it is, when the biologist, the psychologist, or the philosopher, 
accepts Parallelism. Paulsen assures us that physical science 
will never abate one jot of its claim to explain all events as 
purely physically caused. But that is his ipse dixit merely, a 
piece of gratuitous prophecy. There are not wanting now leaders 
of science who reject this claim of physical science to be the 
arbiter of the possible and the impossible, and to make of biology 
and physiology merely dependent branches of its stem.^ 

Let us put the matter in the following way. It must be, 
and by the more enlightened parallelists it is, admitted that it is 
not possible at present to establish the validity of the claim of 
physical science that its principles will explain all events, or to 
rule out psycho-physical interaction as impossible. Suppose, then, 
that psycho-physical interaction is a fact, that it does really occur ; 
then the capitulation of biology and philosophy to physical science 
must have the effect of bringing the course of the development 
of human knowledge into a blind alley, in which further progress 
must be ever more difficult and must involve in a sense a 
■departure from its true goal ; for that goal will only be attainable 
by going back upon the track and picking up the true course at 
the point where this capitulation was made. Surely, then, it is 
the proper task of philosophy to keep the balance true between 
the great departments of science, and to show to each how far 
short of absolute truth its conceptions fall, to make clear their 

^ For a clear-sighted repudiation of this claim, see Dr J. S. Haldane's Presi- 
dential Address to the Physiological Section of the British Association (" Reports," 
1908). The keynote may be indicated by the following extracts: "For Biology 
we must clearly and boldly claim a higher place than the purely physical sciences 
can claim in the hierarchy of the sciences — higher, because Biology is dealing 
with a deeper aspect of reahty." "Since our conception of an organism is 
different in kind, and not merely in degree, from our conception of a material 
aggregate, it is clear that in tracing back life to primitive forms we are getting 
no nearer to what is called abiogenesis." " In Physiology, and Biology generally, 
we are dealing with phenomena which, so far as our present knowledge goes, 
not only differ in complexity, but differ in kind from physical and chemical 
phenomena ; and the fundamental working hypothesis of Physiology must 
differ correspondingly from those of Physics and Chemistry. That a meeting- 
point between Biology and Physical Science may at some time be found, there is 
no reason for doubting. But we may confidently predict that if that meeting- 
point is found, and one of the two sciences is swallowed up, that one will not be 
Biology." 



ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 191 

limits and their true relations, rather than to try to square the 
circle of the universe according to the prescriptions of that branch 
of science which happens to have made the greatest progress and 
to have put forward its claims with the loudest voice. To some 
of those who refuse to recognize the claims of physical science to 
apply its laws to the whole universe of existence, it seems that 
even now we may dimly foresee the taking up of physical science 
into a wider synthesis in which it will occupy an important but 
subordinate place ; and that in this way will be effected the true 
reconciliation between natural science on the one hand and 
philosophy and religion on the other, rather than by any pre- 
mature capitulation to the exorbitant demands of any one of the 
sciences. 

We noticed that one of the advantages claimed for Paral- 
lelism is that it not only puts an end to the strife between 
materialistic science and spiritualistic philosophy, but that, by 
enabling us to accept without reserve and without the reproach 
of philosophical crudity the materalistic generalizations of physical 
science, it brings us the satisfactions that flow (for some minds) 
from that acceptance. To this it is added that the acceptance of 
Animism raises a number of perplexing questions, such as — 
What is the prenatal history of the soul ? What becomes of it at 
the death of the body ? What part does it play in heredity ? 
And it is obvious that at the present time science has no means 
of answering these questions in any satisfactory manner. 

Now, that certain temperaments find satisfaction in the 
doctrine that the universe is a vast mechanism all events of 
which, even the thoughts and acts of God (if there be a God), are 
in principle predictable by calculation as exactly as an eclipse of 
the moon, this fact goes far to explain the popularity of Parallelism, 
but does nothing to justify it. There are temperaments, pro- 
bably equally or. more numerous than the others, to which this 
view of the world seems little better than a nightmare ; and 
their feelings have as much right to be considered, when we 
are casting our votes for the constitution of the universe. 

That Parallelism naturally, if not inevitably, implies and 
demands a monistic conception of the universe is undoubtedly 
one of the grounds of its popularity ; but there are two good 
reasons against allowing this fact to weigh against Animism.^ 

^ And exactly the same considerations hold good of the claim of Psychical 
Monism, based on the ground that it implies an idealistic mejaphysic. 



192 BODY AND MIND 

First, the desire for a monistic or an idealistic metaphysic is 
usually held up by those who experience it as something peculiarly 
lofty and deserving of considerate treatment. But the fact that 
such forms of metaphysical or ontological doctrine appeal in this 
way to certain persons does not in any way strengthen their 
claim to our acceptance. Such desires are by no means universal, 
and it is only by ranging all those who share one's taste in 
metaphysic as sheep over against the goats, whose tastes are 
different, that the desire is made to seem, in the eyes of those who 
experience it, to carry with it a warrant of the truth of their views. 
Many worthy men have, however, preferred a pluralistic or even 
a materialistic metaphysic. Such tastes are merely personal 
idiosyncrasies, like a preference for French mustard or for music 
in a minor key. 

Secondly, Animism is perfectly compatible with a monistic 
view of the universe and with an idealistic metaphysic. (Indeed 
we have seen that Idealism, when consistently carried through, 
implies Animism.) This is sufficiently shown by the fact that a 
number of highly competent philosophers, notably Lotze, Bradley 
and A. E. Taylor, combine to their own satisfaction their prefer- 
ence for Animism or psycho-physical Dualism with Monism and 
Idealism. 

It is, in fact, one of the great advantages of psycho-physical 
Dualism that, whereas each of the rival rhonistic doctrines 
necessarily commits those who accept it to some particular 
ontological doctrine (Materialism, Spinozistic agnostic Monism, or 
Psychical Monism), we are committed by Animism to no meta- 
physical doctrine. We may accept it while remaining wholly 
on the plane of empirical science ; and, in view of the strong 
dislike of metaphysic expressed by so many workers in the 
natural sciences, this fact should be for them a strong recom- 
mendation of Animism. It is true that Descartes' psycho- 
physical Dualism was made by him a metaphysical Dualism ; 
for he taught that matter and soul are two ultimately different 
kinds of reality. But scientific Animism is under no obligation 
to accept Descartes' ontological dogma ; it leaves open the ultimate 
questions, about which it is a mere piece of presumption for any 
man to express a decided opinion in the present state of human 
knowledge. For it the real natures of both body and soul remain 
open questions, the answers to which, we may hope, will be 
gradually brought nearer to the truth by the labours of after- 



ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 193 

coming generations. For the present the animist may, if he lii<es, 
suppose the body to consist of matter such as is described by 
physical science ; or, with Kant, he may regard it as the pheno- 
menon of an unknowable thing-for-itself ; or, with Leibnitz and 
Lotze, as a system of real beings of like nature with the 
soul ; or, with Berkeley, as nothing but the perpetually re- 
newed acts of God upon our souls. In any case his ontological 
view, whatever it may be, so long as it is not solipsistic, need not 
affect, and is perfectly compatible with, his belief in psycho- 
physical interaction. 

That mechanical or parallelistic Monism seems to render 
a coherent account of the world in which no mysteries 
or fundamental problems remain, whereas Animism leaves' 
on our hands, indeed forces upon us, a number of questions 
to which we can return no satisfactory answers ; these facts may 
and do, no doubt, seem to many minds to afford good reason for 
rejecting Animism ; but surely only to those who desire to " lay 
the intellect to rest on a pillow of obscure ideas." For the 
solutions of the deepest problems offered by such Monism are 
largely verbal only. Though such Monism became universally 
accepted, men, regardless of logic, would still speculate on the 
possibility of a future life, or even continue to hope for it, and 
would still ask whether there be not somewhere in the universe 
" a power not ourselves that makes for righteousness." 

And this preference for an account of the universe which 
appears as final and complete, leaving no loose ends and no 
unfathomed possibilities, is neither universal nor deserving of 
special consideration. There are minds of another type to which 
Animism recommends itself just because it points to a great 
unknown in which great discoveries still await the intrepid 
explorer, a vast region at whose mysteries we can hardly guess, 
but to which we can look forward with wonder and awe, and 
towards which we may go on in a spirit of joyful adventure, con- 
fident in the knowledge that, though superstition is old, science is 
still young and has hardly yet learnt to spread her wings and 
leave the solid ground of sense-perception. ^ 

As to the bearing on our problem of the fact that Animism 

^ " The highest philosophy of the scientific investigator is precisely this 
toleration of an incomplete conception of the world, and the preference for it 
rather than an apparently perfect, but inadequate, conception." Thus Prof. 
Mach in " The Science of Mechanics," p. 464. 
13 



194 BODY AND MIND 

was first excogitated by savage man, perhaps before he had learnt 
the use of fire, tools, or clothing, and that it has in all ages and 
amongst almost all peoples been the popularly accepted doctrine ; 
I do not know that the modern animist need feel any shame on 
that account, or need regard the fact as affording any presumption 
against the truth of his view. Many an existing savage tribe 
and, probably, that mythical creature, primitive man himself, has 
agreed with the psychical monists in believing the stars to be 
conscious beings ; and Fechner and Paulsen have not disdained 
to call their testimony to the support of their own view, claiming 
for primitive men the clear untroubled vision natural to the 
childhood of the world. So, in this respect, the rival doctrines 
may cry " quits." 

Let us now glance at certain important consequences that 
logically follow from the acceptance of Parallelism. To many the 
most important consequence will seem to be the necessity of 
rejecting every conception of God, other than the pantheistic. 
Epiphenomenalism is of course not properly compatible with any 
religious belief or hope ; it can only be so combined by those 
who have the " water-tight compartment " type of mind. But 
both forms of the identity-hypothesis are readily and usually 
combined with a pantheistic metaphysic, and will permit of no 
other form of religious belief. 

I do not wish to urge this as an argument against Parallelism ; 
but it is proper that this important implication of it should be 
explicitly mentioned in the course of our examination of the 
various theories of the relation of mind to body. It must be 
clearly recognized, then, that Animism, or the dualistic doctrine 
of soul and body reciprocally influencing one another, is the only 
psycho-physical theory logically compatible with Theism, with a 
belief in a personal God, a Divine Creator, Designer and Ruler of 
the World ; and that, when it is claimed for Parallelism that its 
acceptance will bring to an end the age-long strife between science 
and religion, the claim is only valid on the improbable assumption 
that Pantheism, which by the leaders of religion in all past ages 
has generally been held to be little better than Atheism, will 
prove in the future to be an acceptable and sufl5cient basis for all 
religious thought and feeling. 

Another important implication of all forms of psycho-physical 
Monism is that human personality does not survive the death of 
the body. That Epiphenomenalism necessarily involves this 



ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 195 

implication needs no demonstration. But the implication is not 
perhaps so obvious and incontestable in the case of the parallel- 
istic hypotheses. In this connexion, only the two varieties of the 
Identity-hypothesis need consideration ; for, as we have seen, 
Parallelism proper logically implies one or other of these 
hypotheses-. Fechner held, and sought with much ingenuity and 
ardent eloquence to show, that his psycho-physical theory was 
compatible with a belief in a life after death. But all unbiassed 
minds, I think, will admit that, if either form of the identity- 
hypothesis may be made to seem not to rule out the possibility 
of survival of human personality after death, it is only because it 
leaves the existence and nature of personality, of the individuality of 
the conscious self, an absolute mystery unrelieved by any ray of light. 

Let us glance for a moment at the way in which Fechner 
attempted to reconcile his psycho-physical doctrine with his belief 
in life after death. In "Das Biichlein vom Leben nach dem 
Tode," he begins by ascribing immortality to men in so far as 
their thoughts and actions continue to affect the thoughts and 
lives of after-coming generations.^ 

Survival of this sort is of course undeniable ; it is equally com- 
patible with all psycho-physical theories ; but it is not survival of 
the self-conscious personality. After this he plunges at once into 
poetical descriptions of the life of the souls of the departed, which, 
if the language is to be taken literally, show him to have shared 
the beliefs about the dead which are generally regarded as the 
exclusive property of the despised spiritists.''^ Such language 
alternates with passages more consistent with the pantheistic 
scheme. We are told that, when a man dies, his spirit pours 
itself freely through Nature and no longer merely senses the 
waves of sound and light, but itself rolls on through air and ether ^ ; 
that the spirits of the dead will dwell in the earth as in a common 
body, and that all processes of Nature will be to them what the 
processes of our bodies are to us.* 

Fechner himself raises the question — How can an individual 
consciousness retain its unity when for its physical or bodily 

^ " Was irgend Jemand wjihrend seines Lebens zur Schopfung, Gestaltung 
■Oder Eewahrung der durch die Menschheit und Natur sich ziehenden Ideen 
beigetragen hat, das ist sein unsterblicher Teil " (p. 8). 

'^ " At every festival that we make for them the dead rise up ; they hover 
about every statue that we set up for them ; they hear with us every song iu 
■which their deeds are celebrated" (p. 35). 

3 P. S3. "P. 58. 



196 BODY AND MIND 

aspect it has the whole earth, and has it in common with all 
other departed souls ? But he answers the question only by 
asking another — " Ask first, how consciousness retains its unity 
in the smaller extension of the body." And we are left to infer 
that, because Parallelism can find no answer to this urgent 
question, it is absolved from the impossible task of finding an 
answer to the other. In another work he defines his conception 
of the soul in a way very difficult to reconcile with his psycho- 
physical doctrine — " By Soul I understand the unitary being 
which appears to no one but itself." ^ And again — " I understand 
by Spirit and Soul the same being which, as opposed to the 
body, appears to itself"^; "the spirit is itself that which unites 
the multiplicity of the body." ^ 

In short, the language used by Fechner in discussing this 
subject is woefully lacking in precision and consistency ; the 
reasoning is loose to the last degree, consisting in the main of 
hints at analogies, suggestions of similes and metaphors ; and it 
is only with such reasoning that he attempts to meet the essential 
difficulty of reconciling Parallelism with belief in any survival of 
personality. The difficulty may be stated as follows : According 
to Fechner's own teaching the consciousness of each individual 
is a composite resultant of the conjunction of the minor con- 
sciousnesses of the cells of the brain and body, and these again 
of their elements ; or, strictly in terms of Psychical Monism, the 
spatial and functional conjunction of bodily elements is the 
phenomenal manifestation of the conjunction in the unitary 
system of personal consciousness of many minor conscious 
activities ; or again, in terms of the two-aspect doctrine, the 
composition of the bodily elements is a phenorhenal appearance 
of some composition of real elements, which in its other or 
psychical aspect appears as the composite stream of con- 
sciousness.'^ The dissolution of the body, then, must also be 

^ " Ueber die Seelenfrage " Leipzig, 1861, p. 9. 
2 Op. cit., p. 15. 3 Qp_ f-ii^^ p_ j63_ 

^ Kant himself and most of his followers have admitted that the spatial 
relations of phenomena correspond to some system of real relations between the 
things-in-themselves that appear to us in perception as phenomena in space ; 
thus Vaihinger writes ("Kant Commentar," ii. p. 143) : " Kant, therefore, re- 
cognizes relations of the things-in-themselves which correspond to space, but 
regards them as unknowable. On the other hand Lambert's suggestion still 
holds good, and with all the more force, that to reason by analogy from the 
spatial relations of appearances to the true relations of things-in-themselves is- 
not only allowable but required." 



ARGUMENT A AD HOMINEM 19; 

regarded as the phenomenal manifestation of some corresponding 
change in the underlying reality, and must be paralleled 
by a dissolution of the mental life into its elements. 

The following passage will serve to illustrate the way Fechner 
attempts to deal with this difficulty. " How is it then with the 
playing of a violin? You think, if a violin, which has just been 
played upon, is broken up, then it is all over with its music : it 
dies away, never to sound again, and so also dies away the 
self-conscious music of the human brain, when death destroys 
the instrument. But at the destruction of the violin, as also at 
the death of the man, there is something that you neglect, in 
looking only at that which is most obvious. The notes of the 
violin resound in the wide air, and not only the last note of the 
music, but the whole of it. Now you suppose that, when the 
sound has gone by you, it has died away ; but anyone standing 
at a greater distance can still hear it, therefore it must still exist ; 
one who stands too far away will not hear it at all, but not 
because it has ceased to be ; the sound merely spreads itself out 
too widely, becomes too feeble to be heard at a single spot ; but 
imagine that your ear accompanies the sound and spreads itself 
out with the widening circle of the vibration, then you would 
continue to hear it. It is never extinguished ; it remains for 
ever. The narrowly bounded violin has spread its music into 
infinity. You ask, who could really follow the sound and hear 
it whithersoever it goes ? But something really follows it 
everywhere : the sound itself follo\vs itself everywhere. How 
now, if it could hear itself? Would it not continue to hear 
itself for ever ? Vain supposition truly in the case of the lifeless 
violin, but is it vain also in the case of the live instrument ? 
The lifeless one is played upon by others, and so its music is 
only heard by others just where they happen to be, and does 
not hear itself But the living violin of our body plays itself, 
and so also its music hears itself and only needs to follow after 
itself in order to continue to hear itself^." 

I think it worth while to cite this passage, because it is a fair 
sample of the reasonings employed by Fechner throughout his 
many writings on this topic, and illustrates very well their 
attractive, fantastic, and unconvincing character. 

Paulsen, who was a faithful disciple of Fechner, evidently 
recognized the doubtful character of Fechner's reasonings con- 
1 " Zend-Avesta," Bd. II. S. 293. 



198 BODY AND MIND 

cerning the life after death ; he himself dismisses the question of 
survival in half a page, saying — " it is unthinkable that a soul- 
life should be annihilated " ; and suggesting that, as our past 
soul-life continues to exist in present memory, so the individual 
life may continue to exist as an enduring element of the life and 
consciousness of God. To which he adds, a little lamely, that 
nothing prevents our believing that it may continue to enjoy a 
certain independence and unity of consciousness within the 
whole.^ 

But, it may be said, Kant has settled this question once for 
all — Why then trouble to display the inconsequence of Fechner's 
fantastic reasoning ? Fechner committed the error condemned by 
Kant in the metaphysicians who preceded him, namely, he 
attempted to apply his understanding to the things of the 
mundus intelligibilis, with which only the practical reason can deal. 

Now I do not know that any living philosopher who is 
seriously to be reckoned with accepts Kant's reasoning on this 
matter ; but the authority and prestige of Kant's name are so 
great that it seems -necessary to consider his teaching in respect 
to immortality. 

Kant sought to establish the immortality of the soul by 
setting up the mundus mtelligibilis, which he separated from the 
mundus sensibilis or physical world by an impassable chasm, in 
the dark abysses of which the thing-for-itself hovered uncertainly. 
For he taught that, just as the world is two worlds, so man is 
two men, one, a phenomenal man belonging to the mundus 
sensibilis and wholly subject to mechanical law and, therefore, 
to dissolution ; the other a pure thinking being belonging to the 
mundus intelligibilis, and therefore immortal, like all other things 
of that world. And Kant left the relation between these two 
men as completely obscure as that between the two worlds. 

I have already commented upon the unacceptable character 
of this dualism ; and here I have only to insist upon the inad- 
missibility of the method by which it is reached. That method 
was to divide the human intellect into two intellects, two disparate 
faculties of knowing and reasoning, the theoretical and the 

^ " Einleitung," S. 267. In almost the last of his published works, " A Plural- 
istic Universe," the Mte William James expressed a general adhesion to Fechner's 
world-view ; and he certainly beheved that the mind of man is not wholly de- 
stroyed on the death of the body. But he never accepted Parallelism or the 
mechanistic assumptions on which it is based, but held a pecuhar animistic view 
of the psycho-physical relation, which he called the " transmission theory." 



ARGUMENT A AD HOMINEM 199 

practical reasons, and to assign the two worlds to the two 
intellects respectively. 

To maintain that the human mind comprises these two 
intellects, the exercise of which leads to incompatible results, to 
an antinomy, is to assert the inadequacy of the human mind to 
the tasks of philosophy, especially to the task of reconciling 
science with religion, which is commonly regarded as the prime 
function of philosophy ; and, if Kant's epistemology were such as 
to compel our adhesion to it, we should have to resign ourselves 
to a radical •' scepticism of the instrument." But the reasoning 
by which Kant attempted to establish the practical reason as a dis- 
tinct faculty can hardly be seriously maintained at the present day. 

He found the surest evidence of the mundus intelligibilis and 
of the faculty by aid of which we apprehend it, in man's conscious- 
ness of duty, of vocation, of the worth of spiritual and moral 
goods. This moral consciousness, he declared, is the expression 
of man's inmost nature and in it his belief in God, freedom, and 
immortality may securely rest. 

Thus the nature of man's moral consciousness, ascertainable 
as empirical fact, is made by Kant the guarantee of the 'inundus 
intelligibilis and of all that belongs to it, including the immortal 
soul of man. But modern psychology shows that what is 
called a man's moral consciousness is his system of moral senti- 
ments ; that he absorbs these moral sentiments in the main from 
the moral tradition of his social environment, which has been 
slowly evolved throughout the period of civilization by a process 
perfectly intelligible in its main outlines ; that the moral senti- 
ments are no more and no less peculiar or mysterious than the 
other abstract sentiments, the aesthetic or the intellectual 
sentiments ; and that, therefore, their existence does not in the 
least justify the conception of the practical reason as a special 
faculty of an order distinct from that which we use in our ordinary 
commerce with the phenomenal world. 

That Kant should have thought it possible to erect so great 
a superstructure on so fragile a basis can only be understood 
when we reflect upon the very peculiar circumstances of his life ; 
how all his life long, in an age when books were comparatively 
rare and newspapers almost unknown, he lived in a small 
provincial city, hardly passing beyond sight of its steeples in all 
his eighty years ; how in that narrow space he lived an intensely 
artificial life, the life of a bookish celibate recluse, remote from 



200 BODY AND MIND 

all the natural passions and impulses which move the mass of 
mankind ; how, owing to these circumstances, he inevitably 
remained profoundly ignorant of human nature ^ ; and how his 
conception of man and of his moral consciousness was determined 
by the fact that he was familiar only with the circle of earnest 
pietists in which he was born and bred.^ 

But, even if we could admit that the moral consciousness of 
mankind is as an empirical fact what Kant held it to be, the 
argument by which he deduces from it freedom and immortality 
would remain unconvincing in the last degree. In the " Critique 
of Pure Reason," he bases the belief in a future life on the very 
natural demand or desire that happiness shall be proportioned 
to morality. But in the " Critique of Practical Reason," he bases 
belief in immortality on the demand for the attainment of moral 
perfection which seemed to him to be implied in the moral 
imperative : for a finite being cannot attain to moral perfection, 
but is capable of infinite progress towards it ; therefore, if the 
moral law is to be fulfilled, we must continue to progress for 
ever ; therefore we must be immortal. 

This, in brief, was the reasoning by means of which Kant 
sought to establish human immortality ; and surely Heine's 
scoffing was not altogether without some slight basis in fact, 
when he said that Kant, having completed his scheme of things, 
found that the old body-servant who carried his umbrella so 
faithfully must have a God and a future life, and therefore gave 
him both. The argument has been well characterized by the 
late Henry Sidgwick as illustrating equally the ingenuity and 
the nawete of Kant.^ 

Few would undertake at the present day to defend Kant's 
practical reason and his proof of immortality. Paulsen, for 
example, who must be reckoned one of the most faithful disciples, 
as he was one of the most able exponents of Kant, let go, as 
indefensible and tinged with the vices of the precritical dogmatic 
metaphysic, the practical reason and the moral philosophy of 
which it was the basis.* 

^ Be it said with all reverence for liis great intellect and fine character. 

^ It seems that Kant had a pecuhar aversion to hterature of the class by 
aid of which he might have widened his knowledge of human nature. 

^ " The Philosophy of Kant," p. 19. 

* " One must say that anything so internally inconsistent as the ' Critique 
of Practical Reason ' is perhaps not to be met with again in the history of philo- 
sophical thought" (Paulsen's "Kant," Eng. trans., p. 321). 



ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 201 

Other psycho-physical monists, more particularly Hegelians 
(though not all of them), perfer to dismiss the question as to the 
survival of personality as an unmeaning one, or at least as one of 
no importance if it has any meaning ; thereby showing that their 
thought has risen to a height of philosophical abstraction at which 
it ceases to have any bearing upon the problems which to the rest 
of mankind seem of the deepest and most urgent interest. 

Of contemporary authors. Prof, H. Miinsterberg has adopted 
this attitude more boldly perhaps than any other.^ Kant, with 
oije of those glaring inconsistencies which abound in his writings, 
had treated of the future life as a progress in time, and in fact 
had based his proof of immortality upon the need for such moral 
progress, although our conception of time was in his view 
applicable only to the phenomenal world. Miinsterberg boldly 
abides by the doctrine of the subjectivity of time and causation ; 
causality is the creation of my mind merely, and time is the 
creation of causality and therefore equally subjective. But man ' 
is fundamentally will and purpose, and will and purpose are not 
causes, and therefore are not in time. Hence, " if we are really 
will, and thus outside of time, there is no longer any meaning in 
the desire for a protracted duration, this one hope in which 
the open and the matured materialists find themselves together." 
" My life as a causal system of physical and psychical processes, 
which lie spre^ out in time between the dates of my birth and 
of my death, will come to an end with my last breath. . . . But my 
real life as a system of inter-related will attitudes has nothing 
before or after, because it is beyond time. . . . It is not born and 
will not die ; it is immortal, all possible thinkable time is enclosed 
in it ; it is eternal." " There is thus no conflict between the 
claim of science that we are mental mechanisms bound by law and 
the claim of our self-consciousness that we are free personalities." 

This is what Idealism of this kind offers to the mourner ^ and 
to him who keenly resents the great injustices of life as we know 
it. That this doctrine of the timeless and therefore eternal self 
has no value from these points of view seems obvious. And that 
it is Subjective Idealism and implies Solipsism seems equally 
clear ; for it denies the validity of the conception of causation, 
which, as we have seen, alone enables each of us to transcend the 
sphere of his immediate experience. But even if we pass over 

^ It is briefly expounded in Ms Ingersol Lecture, " The Eternal Life." 

^ Miinsterberg's lecture is actually cast in the form of a consolatory address. 



202 BODY AND MIND 

these objections, can we admit that the phrase the timeless 
existence of the self has any meaning? In common with the 
great majority of men of trained intelligence, I would say — none 
at all. Miinsterberg tells us repeatedly that we are essentially 
will and purpose ; and he repeatedly speaks of our wills as 
progressing or miaking progress, as seeking and longing, as point- 
ing backwards. In fact the words will and purpose are deprived 
at once of all meaning, if we assign them to a timeless existence ; 
the conceptions are inevitably bound up with the idea of the future, 
the idea of bringing to pass that which is not yet ; and if we 
were to take away from Miinsterberg's discourse every word which 
implies the time-reference of will, no meaning would be left 
to his sentences. The denier of time may object that the use 
of these words implying time is the inevitable result of the 
])overty of our language. But we have a right to assert that 
ideas which cannot be expressed without self-contradiction are 
themselves self-contradictory. 

That the difficulty, defined above, of reconciling Parallelism 
with personal survival after death is very real and great, can 
hardly be denied ; and that Fechner's acute mind should have 
been unable to do anything more towards overcoming it, than to 
offer such vague analogies as that of the violin, does but 
accentuate the difficulty, which to my mind seems insuperable. 
I conclude, then, that the view that the mind is dependent on the 
body, or that the consciousness and the body of a man are but 
two aspects of one thing, or that the body is a mode of appear- 
ance of his mental life, is strictly incompatible with belief in any 
survival of human personality after the death of the body. 

That Animism is the only psycho-physical hypothesis which is 
compatible with a belief in any continuance of human personality 
after death, cannot, of course, be put forward as evidence of its 
truth ; but it does justify a lively interest in the establishment of 
its truth ; especially just now when for the first time serious 
attempts are being made to discover empirical evidence of such 
survival ;^ and the fact that these attempts seem already to justify 
hope of their success should at least serve to warn us against 
holding dogmatically, as so many now do, to Parallelism, a doctrine 
which is incompatible with this belief and therefore liable to be 
overthrown at any moment by the success of these efforts. 

I do not urge as any support to Animism the fact that sO' 
^ See chap. xxv. 



ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 203. 

large a proportion of the human race has always believed in the 
life after death, nor the fact that so many ardently desire such, 
life ; nor should I do so if this belief and this desire were 
universal. That all men desire immortality is merely a fiction 
of the literary tradition ; ^ but that we ought to desire a proof 
of the survival of our personality after death is, I think, de- 
monstrable from moral considerations. In the first place, the 
great injustices of human life as we know it remain as a dark 
shadow that cannot be relieved if each man's personality ceases 
with the grave, a shadow that must darken our whole conception 
of the universe and of man's position in it.^ Secondly, apart 
from this desire for the possibility of some readjustment of the 
injustices of this life, and apart altogether from the influence 
upon conduct of belief in the reception of rewards and punish- 
ments after death, the desire for evidence of a continuance of 
personality after death is justified by the influence such evidence 
might be expected to have upon conduct. There can be no 
doubt, I think, that, where a belief in a future life obtains, 
generally among any people, it tends to maintain and to raise 
the standards of thought and conduct of that people. In all 
ages the national existence of every highly civilized people is 
seriously threatened by the tendency that has proved fatal to- 
so many States, the tendency for each individual to choose ta. 
live for himself alone and to secure for himself as much enjoy- 
ment as possible, regardless of all other considerations. An 
effective belief in a future life seems to be the only influence 
capable in the long run of keeping this tendency in check, when 
once men have begun to reflect freely upon their position in the 
universe. And this belief operates in this way, even though 
we remain entirely in the dark as to the kind of experience that 
may be ours after death ; for it widens our outlook, pushes back 
the boundaries, forbids us to regard the horizon that we see as. 
the limit of our world, and so makes us live this life with a 
sense that issues are involved in it greater than any we can 
define or grasp ; in a word, it preserves in us something of the 
religious attitude towards life. Now there can be no doubt 
that under the influence of science this belief is rapidly decaying 

^ See Dr F. C. S. Schiller's essay on "The Desire for Immortality," in. 
" Humanism." 

* It was this consideration that led the late Henry Sidgwick to'devote so large- 
a part of his energies to the search for empirical evidence of a life after death. 



204 BODY AND MIND 

among all the leading nations of the world. Here is, then, not 
any new evidence in favour of Animism, but good reason for 
refusing to give it up, unless we are logically compelled to do so ; 
good reason for subjecting the claims of Parallelism to the most 
severe criticism ; good reason for keeping open our minds towards 
all the evidence that goes to prove the inadequacy of the prin- 
ciples of physical science to explain the whole course of the universe. 

Lastly, I may properly notice in this chapter a circumstance 
which has exerted in recent times a very considerable influence 
in securing for the parallelistic interpretations the large following 
that they now enjoy among the students of science and philo- 
sophy ; I mean the fact that so large a majority of influential 
writers have given their adhesion to one or other of these 
allied doctrines, especially among those who in recent years have 
explicitly discussed the pycho-physical problem. Among this 
large number I enumerate the following authors whose activities 
have fallen within the distinctly modern period — Fechner, 
Paulsen, Wundt, Ebbinghaus, Miinsterberg, Hoffding, Ribot, 
Huxley, Spencer, Tyndal, Romanes, Lewes, Bain, Bosanquet, 
Lloyd Morgan, Stout. 

It is right that these names should carry great weight. But 
in view of the imposing character of this array of names (which 
might be indefinitely prolonged), it is important that I should 
point out that the defenders of Animism are not confined to the 
ranks of authors of popular treatises and manuals of devotion, 
but that amongst them are a number of men whose philosophical 
achievements give them the right to a most respectful hearing. 
Among those authors who have been familiar with the achieve- 
ments of modern science, and who ma}' be reckoned on the side of 
Animism, because they either have explicitly defended it or have 
declared themselves unable to accept any one of the parallelistic 
doctrines, I name Lotze, Sigwart, C. Stumpf, O. Kiilpe, L. 
Busse, Bergson, James Ward, William James, Henry Sidgwick, 
F. H. Bradley, G. T. Ladd, A. E. Taylor.^ 

* To this list of names I think I may add those of two brothers whose claims 
to rank high among philosophers are apt to be forgotten in a world which freely 
accords them the higher honours of statesmanship, I mean of course Messrs 
Arthur and Gerald Balfour. I add their names with some hesitation, because 
they have not dealt explicitly with the psycho-physical problem. Yet their 
keen interest in the work of the Society for Psychical Research and various 
passages in their pubhshed writings seem to justify the inclusion of their names 
in the hst. 



ARGUMENTA AD HOMINEM 205; 

The reader may therefore approach my defence of Animism 
with the comforting assurance that, if he should incHne towards. 
its acceptance, he will find himself, not indeed on the popular side 
in the world of science and philosophy, but in highly respectable- 
company. 



CHAPTER XV 

EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 
FROM EPISTEMOLOGY, "INCONCEIVABILITY," AND THE 
LAW OF CONSERVATION OF ENERGY 

TWO arguments against Animism are put forward with the 
claim that they suffice to necessitate the rejection of that 
doctrine, because either one standing alone makes un- 
tenable the belief in any psychical intervention with the course of 
physical process. These must first be examined ; for if their 
claims are valid, our discussion may quickly be brought to its 
end. It would only remain for us to choose between the rival 
parallelistic interpretations. If, however, they prove to be incon- 
clusive, we must go on to examine the arguments on the same 
side whose claim is less absolute, and which are put forward rather 
as supports to these leading arguments, than as in themselves 
capable of deciding the issue. 

These two principal arguments are that from the law of the 
■conservation of energy, and that from the inconceivability of 
psycho-physical interaction. By those who accept atomistic 
Materialism as metaphysical truth they are combined in one great 
dogma, which runs — all real process consists in the movement of 
masses, all motion is caused by motion only, and all acceleration or 
change of motion of any body is caused by impact of some other 
body upon it. This dogma, of course, rules out psycho-physical 
interaction, and, if it were well established truth, there would be 
nothing more to be said in defence of Animism. But, since 
this dogmatic metaphysical Materialism is no longer seriously 
defended, we must consider the two contentions separately. 

That psycho-physical interaction is impossible because we 
cannot conceive it or understand it, is the old argument of the 
Occasionalists. By them it was put in the form — We cannot 
conceive how things so unlike as inextended immaterial soul and 
material extended body can act upon one another. For they 
accepted Descartes' dualistic metaphysic. The premise of their 

206 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 207 

argument was that action is only possible between things of 
like nature. This phrase, in so far as it conveys any meaning, is 
merely the expression of an unfounded prejudice which, like many 
another, has been given the dignity and importance of a meta- 
physical truth. The validity of the proposition is at least as 
doubtful as its meaning is obscure. 

The various modern dressings of this argument from incon- 
ceivability, some of which we have noticed,^ add nothing to its 
force. The argument was answered by Lotze for all time when 
he wrote — " The kernel of this error is always that we believe 
ourselves to possess a knowledge of the nature of the action of 
one thing on another which we not only do not possess, but 
which is in itself impossible, and that we then regard the relation 
between matter and soul as an exceptional case, and are astonished 
to find ourselves lacking in all knowledge of the nature of their 
interaction." " It is easy to show that in the interaction between 
body and soul there lies no greater riddle than in any other 
example of causation, and that only the false conceit that we 
understand something of the one case, excites our astonishment 
that we understand nothing of the other." ^ As Hume long ago 
showed, we have no insight into causal action in the physical world, 
even of the simplest kind. The communication of motion by im- 
pact, as of one billiard ball upon another, is the kind of causation 
or transitive action in the physical world with which we are most 
familiar ; and physical science has attempted in the past to 
exhibit all physical causation as being of this type. In so far as 
we succeed in conceiving any instance of causation as of this most 
familiar type, we are apt to feel that we understand it or have 
explained it. Now, since psycho-physical interaction can- 
not be reduced to the same familiar type (for by the very 
terms of the hypothesis it is a kind of interaction sui generis), 
it is true that we cannot understand it in this sense of the 
word. But in no other sense than that of reduction to a 
familiar type of sequence, such as that of motion or impact, can 
we understand physical interaction ; it is admitted by the philo- 

^ P. 91 and p. 122. 

^ " Medizinische Psychologic," S. 56. In a similar vein Kant wrote: " For 
all difficulties which concern the combination of the thinking being with matter 
arise without exception from the insidious duahstic idea that matter as such is not 
appearance, that is to say, a mere presentation of the mind to which corresponds 
an unknown object, but is that object itself as it exists outside us and independ- 
ently of our sensory powers " (" Kritik d. r. V.," Erdmann's edition, p. 226). 



2o8 BODY AND MIND 

sophers and physicists alike that, when we try to penetrate into the 
intimate nature of the process of communication of motion by 
impact, we find ourselves in the midst of insuperable difficulties. 

It is well said by Professor Stumpf that " the unlikeness of 
soul and body.can hardly be seriously urged (against the possibility 
of psycho-physical interaction) by any person of insight acquainted 
with the investigations of David Hume. Cause and effect are 
not necessarily of like nature. Only experience can show what 
things belong together as cause and effect. And least of all 
should those deny the possibility of interaction of these unlike 
things, who preach their substantial unity or identity ; for the 
relation of the two worlds, the physical and the psychical, implied 
by this doctrine of substantial unity, is an even more intimate one 
than the causal relation." ^ 

The following considerations make this argument from in- 
conceivability appear not only invalid, but also a little absurd. 
The argument implies, as Lotze said, that we understand 
physical causation in some more intimate way than any other 
kind of causation. . Now if, as Hume maintained, by causation we 
mean and can mean nothing more than invariable concomitance 
or sequence, then the invariable concomitance of consciousness 
and brain-process asserted by the Monists is as good a case 
of causation as any other. But the only alternative to 
this doctrine of Hume is that provided by psychology and 
now generally accepted ; according to this view, our conception 
of physical causation is not arrived at only or chiefly by the 
observation of invariable concomitance of phenomena ; for such 
observation can rarely be made without interruption of the 
series of repetitions by apparent exceptions to the rule : it 
is achieved rather by the projection into the material mass, 
which we set in movement by pushing against it and which 
seems to resist our push, a capacity for effort or the exercise 
of power such as we are immediately conscious of when we 
put forth our strength. That is to say our conception of 
causation is principally derived from our experience of volitional 
effort, of psychical causation, and is only secondarily applied 
to the explanation of physical events. Accordingly, it may 
be plausibly maintained, and by many philosophers has been 
maintained, that psychical causation is the only kind of causation 
of which we have any understanding. And this view is at 
^ " Leib und Seele, 1896." 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 209 

least as true as that which claims that we understand physical 
causation only. Now, when we find, as in this case, that 
all the persons whose training fits them to form a judgment 
on a particular question are ranged in two opposite camps 
returning directly opposed answers to the question, the only 
philosophical attitude we can assume is one of suspension of 
judgment, and of recognition that the peculiar prejudices of 
individuals and the limitations of their imaginations, or even 
the limitation of the imagination of the whole human race 
at any given period of its evolution, ought not to be accepted 
as the criterion of what is, or is not, possible in the 
universe. 

The other less crude way of presenting the argument 
fails to render it any more decisive. It is said that the spatial 
conceptions which we use for dealing in thought with the 
phenomenal world cannot legitimately be intermixed with 
conceptions of non-spatial influences. But this is a difficulty 
of our own making, which disappears if we admit that the 
spatial processes we perceive and conceive are but the phenomenal 
manifestation of some underlying real processes. And it must 
be admitted that, if the conceptions which we habitually use in 
dealing in thought with the physical world are unsuitable for 
dealing with the case of psycho-physical interaction, that 
fact cannot disprove the reality of such interaction, but merely 
points to our need of a more adequate system of conceptions 
for dealing with the psycho-physical problem. But perhaps 
the shortest and most effective way of meeting this argument 
is the following. If you deny all causation you are a solipsist 
(for without recognizing the validity of the principle of 
causation you cannot get beyond your own consciousness), 
and we leave you in your splendid isolation. If you are an 
epiphenomenalist, you believe that the brain-processes are the 
cause of your thoughts, that is, you believe in the action of 
the physical on the psychical, or causation of the psychical 
by the physical ; and this is at least as difficult to understand 
as the action of the psychical on the physical. If you are a 
parallelist in the strict sense of the word, you leave the relation 
of the psychical to the physical as a perpetual mystery. If you 
accept either of the two remaining alternatives to Animism, 
you admit that matter is but phenomenal, and either you assert 
that the nature of reality which underlies both body and mind 

14 



2IO BODY AND MIND 

is unknown, or you maintain that the reality underlying physical 
phenomena is mental in nature ; and in either case the contention 
that there can be no action of the mind upon the real process 
of which physical processes are the phenomena would be 
absurd. 

This " inconceivability argument " and the closely allied episte- 
mological dictum of Kant to the effect that the phenomenal world 
must be explained mechanically in terms of extension and motion, 
involve the erecting into an exclusive principle or prescription 
the natural tendency of our minds to conceive things under 
the form of matter and motion, to select " primary qualities " of 
things as constituting their real nature. This we do because, 
as Dr Stout says, we can describe the executive order of the 
world better or more effectively in those terms than in any 
others. But that our minds work most efficiently in these 
terms is no guarantee that this mechanical aspect of the world 
is more real than other aspects. 

Sense-experiences, such as odours, tastes, and sounds, and 
certain bodily sensations such as hunger, of which the spatial 
attributes are obscure and in some cases perhaps lacking, enable 
us to conceive a creature with intellectual powers otherwise 
similar to our own, but incapable of perceiving extension or 
position or motion, and whose sense-perceptions involve only 
purely qualitative and intensive changes. Such a creature might 
build up some conceptual account of the physical world, the 
world of his sense-perceptions, which might be valid in the sense 
that by the aid of it he would in some degree render intelligible 
to himself the order of those perceptions. Yet there would be 
nothing spatial in the world so conceived. And for such a crea- 
ture, pondering the psycho-physical problem, the " inconceivability 
argument " would appear quite pointless. Reflexion upon the 
v.^ay in which such an intellect would conceive the physical 
world wilhhelp us to realize that the philosophers from Descartes, 
Locke, and Spinoza to Kant and to many moderns,^ who have 
insisted upon the necessity of conceiving the physical world in 
terms of extension and motion only, are merely, as was said 
above, erecting a peculiarity of our intellect (which is by no means 

^ E.g. Sir F. Pollock, who tells us with coraplete assurance that " we know 
a world of things extended in space, to the understanding of which, so far as we 
can understand them, the laws of matter and motion are our sole and sufhcient 
guide " (" Spinoza ; His Life and Philosophy," p. 164). 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 2n 

a necessary peculiarity of intellect in general) into a universal law 
of thought and of physical science.^ 

Of all the arguments against psycho-physical interaction that 
drawn from the law of conservation of energy, is regarded as the 
chief by many (I believe, the great majority) of those who at the 
present day accept Parallelism '^ ; yet it may be shown to be incon- 
clusive in so many different ways that the only difficulty with it is 
the difficulty of choosing a few of them for presentation here. Let 
us begin by admitting the law in the most rigid and thorough- 
going form in which it can be stated, and let us make the case 
against psycho-physical interaction as strong as possible by 
accepting the scheme of kinetic mechanism as a metaphysically 
true description of the physical universe. Then all physical 
energy becomes kinetic energy or the momentum of masses, and 
the law asserts that the kinetic energy of the universe is a con- 
stant quantity. If then any psychical influence be supposed to 
change the rate of motion of the least particle of matter, it 
must increase or diminish the existing quantity of kinetic energy ; 
and the supposition is contrary to the law. But the course of 
physical events might be altered by changing the direction of the 
motion of particles without altering their rate ; and this might be 
done in such a way as to produce no change in the quantity of 
kinetic energy. This is the conception of guidance without work 
foreshadowed by Descartes and rendered more definite by modern 
physicists. 

Clerk Maxwell pointed out the possibility of applying the fol- 
lowing principle to the explanation of the action of mind on body. 

^ The following passages written by one who is eminent as both physicist 
and philosopher may serve to enforce what is said above : " The French encyclo- 
paedists of the eighteenth century imagined that they were not far from a final 
explanation of the world by physical and mechanical principles ; Laplace even 
conceived a mind competent to foretell the progress of nature for all eternity, 
if but the masses, their positions, and initial velocities were given. In the 
«ighteenth century, this joyful overestimation of the scope of the new physico- 
mechanical ideas is pardonable. Indeed, it is a refreshing, noble, and elevating 
spectacle ; and we can deeply sympathize with this expression of intellectual 
joy, so unique in history. But now, after a century has elapsed, after our judg- 
ment has grown more sober, the world-conception of the encyelopsedists appears 
"to us as a mechanical mythology in contrast to the animistic of the old rehgions." 
^' The science of mechanics does not comprise the foundations, no, nor even 
a part of the world, but only an aspect of it '" (Prof. Mach's " Science of 
Mechanics," Eng. trans., pp. 463 and 507). 

^ E.g. by Strong {op. cit.) and Ebbinghaus (" Grundziige d. Psychologic"). 



212 BODY AND MIND 

A force or stress applied to a moving body along a line of direc- 
tion strictly at right angles to the path of its motion deflects the 
path of the body without doing work, without diminishing or 
increasing its rate of movement, and therefore without altering its 
momentum or kinetic energy. The spokes of a revolving wheel 
exert such guidance without work upon the rim. Gravitation 
of the planets about the sun approximates to the realization 
of such guidance without work, and only fails to realize it 
because their paths are not truly circular. If the path of the 

planet were truly circular, the 
^ ^,^ force of gravitation acting be- 

"^^^ tween sun and planet would be 

\ a perfect example of guidance 

\ without work. 

^ •c ^a. Professor Poynting, if I under- 

\ • stand him rightly, has given 



\ I greater precision to this notion 

N ! in the following way.^ Let a 

'''"-©r — «< and d be two equal masses 

(atoms, molecules, or what not) 
Fig. io. ) ! . . . . 

m a bram, movmg m opposite 

directions with equal velocities. Then suppose that, at the 

moment of greatest approximation of the two masses, mind 

establishes a rigid bond between them, so that they cannot 

recede from one another. Each must then be diverted from 

its path and must follow a circular path about the point c 

midway between them ; and the two bodies must continue to 

rotate about this centre like a double star, so long as no change 

of the conditions takes place. Suppose that, at the moment when 

the two bodies are in the positions a ^ and d,^ mind resolves its 

bond as suddenly as it imposed it ; then the two bodies will 

recede from one another along paths at right angles to their 

original paths, but with the same velocities as before. Thus mind 

would have changed the course of physical events in the brain by 

exerting guidance without doing work. The course of events in 

the physical universe would have been changed, without the sum 

total of kinetic energy having been diminished or increased. 

This is a pleasing fancy. And it is impossible to deny that 

mind may act in this way on matter ; and that therefore, even if 

the scheme of kinetic mechanism were a true picture of the 

^ " Hibbert Journal," vol. ii. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 213 

physical universe, mind might act on matter without breach of the 
law of conservation of kinetic energy taken in its most absolute 
sense. 

But we need not argue the case on the assumption that 
atomic Materialism and kinetic Mechanism are the last words of 
physical science. The dogmatic uncritical belief that the physical 
universe was truly described in these terms was widespread in 
scientific circles a generation ago ; but it was a faith and a hope 
rather than a reasonably based opinion. It seem.s to hold its 
sway in the minds of many of the older biologists, who absorbed 
their notions of physical science in the days of their youth when 
this faith was still confidently held by some physicists. But it 
has become clear to the more enlightened physicists that this 
scheme of kinetic mechanism is at best but a working hypothesis, 
and that it is one which, though in its day it has been of very 
great use, is now pretty well played out. At no time could it be 
accepted save by shutting one's eyes to a multitude of facts. A 
great many of the physical phenomena about us do not in any 
way suggest that they are of the nature demanded by the scheme, 
e.g. all the phenomena of light, of electricity and magnetism, 
of gravity, of chemical attraction and affinity, of latent chemical 
energy ; and the long sustained effort of the physicists to bring 
these into line with the scheme was only rendered in any degree 
hopeful by the invention of the ether, by making it both matter 
and not-matter, and by assigning to it a number of properties 
which are quite incompatible with one another ; for example, it is 
to be a perfect fluid, continuous, imponderable and frictionless 
(which in itself is but a limiting conception achieved by taking 
away from the notion of fluid several of its essential features), and 
this perfect fluid is to be perfectly rigid and elastic. Yet even 
when thus described, regardless of its logical inconceivability, the 
ether fails to bring into the kinetic scheme of things the facts of 
gravitation and of chemical affinity. 

Let us then replace the scheme of kinetic mechanism with 
that of dynamic mechanism, and, continuing to admit for the 
purpose of the argument that the physical energy of the universe 
is a quantity which never changes, let us consider another way in 
which psychical influence might nevertheless affect the course of 
physical events. 

We are compelled to recognize the existence of physical 
energy under two very different forms, namely, the active and 



214 BODY AND MIND 

the potential or latent ; examples of the latter are potential 
chemical energy (in which form the greater part of the energy- 
contained in the body of an organism always exists) and the latent 
energy of position, as that of a stone when it reaches the highest 
point of its path after being thrown straight up from the earth. 
Now in the organism energy is constantly being rendered latent 
and constantly being liberated or converted from the latent to 
the active condition ; and Dr Hans Driesch ^ argues that one" 
essential peculiarity of living organisms is that in their tissues 
the conversion of potential into active energy is liable to be 
temporarily suspended or postponed by a non-mechanical agency 
which he calls the " entelechy " of the organism. We may 
see in this suggestion a possible mode in which mind might exert 
guidance on brain-process without doing work. The suggestion 
may be illustrated by the simple case of the pendulum, and the 
case is strictly "analogous to the hypothetical case of the vibrating 
molecules. As the bob of the pendulum swings to and fro, its 
kinetic energy is wholly converted into latent energy of position 
at each moment in which it occupies either of the extremities of 
its path. Now.f uppose that mind could arrest it in the position 
of latent 'energy ; then, if it were so held but for the briefest 
moment, the course of physical events would have been altered 
without change of the quantity of energy of the universe. And^ 
if the mind could exert such an influence upon the atoms or 
molecules of the brain-substance, it might thus play a decisive 
part in determining the issue of brain-processes, without breach 
of the law of conservation of energy. 

The great weight attached to the objection to psycho-physical 
interaction which we are now examining will perhaps excuse me 
to the reader if I put before him yet another possible mode of 
circumventing the objection, while accepting the most extended 
formula of the principle of conservation. 

If, with most of the philosophers since Kant, we admit that 
the spatial ordering of physical phenomena is the work of our 
minds, then it'follows that, though this spatial order of the things 
we perceive may correspond to or symbolize some system of real 
relations between the realities underlying the phenomena, we 
have no knowledge of the real nature of these relations. What, 
then, forbids us to believe that mind may have the power of 

1 " Science and Philosophy of the Organism," Gifford Lectures, 1908, vol. ii. 
p. 180. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 215 

changing these relations while leaving unchanged the quantity of 
energy (or capacity for influence or causation) of these realities ? 
If mind has such power, it may influence the processes whose 
phenomena we conceive as brain-processes in a way which 
would appear ,to us as a., spatial redistribution of energy or a 
transference of energy from one part of the brain to another, 
without intervening phenomenal medium, and without alteration 
I of the quantity of energy.^ 

But we may meet the argument from the law of conservation 
of energy more boldly and, perhaps, more effectively by asserting 
that the " law " is merely an empirical generalization whose 
' validity extends only to those orders of phenomena of which it 
has been shown to hold good by exact experiment ; or that at 
the most it is a well-based inductive generalization which states 
that, whenever one form of physical energy is transformed into 
another, the quantity of the second form is equivalent to that of 
the first. In this limited and empirically justified form, the law 
has no bearing on our problem. It is only when it is given the 
form — the physical energy of the universe is a finite quantity 
which can be neither diminished nor increased — that the " law " 
rules out the possibility of the addition of energy to our organisms 
by extra-physical influences, if such exist. This more general 
statement of the law of conservation is arrived at only in the 
following way : — the physical universe is a closed system of 
energy, a system closed against psychical intervention or any 
intervention from without ; it is empirically established that the 
transformations of physical energy within any closed system 
result in no change of the quantity of energy of the system ; 
therefore the quantity of energy of the physical universe is 
constant and there can be no influx of energy from without. 
This it will be observed is a perfect example of an argument in 
a circle. The law of the conservation of energy, then, is only 
made to seem to rule out the possibility of the influx of psychical 
energy by tacitly assuming in the premise of the argument the 
conclusion which is drawn from it. 

When authors assert that the constancy of the quantity of 
physical energy of the universe is an axiom, i.e. a proposition 
which all sane competent minds find themselves compelled to 
accept, as soon as they understand it, they misuse the word 

'■I owe this suggestion to Dr Percy Nunn, though I am not sure that he would 
approve of the way in which I have stated it. 



2i6 BODY AND MIND 

axiom.^ The proposition is, if ygu like, a postulate, and, Irke 
every postulate, is to be used only as a working hypothesis (or 
for the purpose of the particular argument for which it is made), 
and is to be given up if it is found to conflict with empirically 
ascertained fact. 

Twenty years ago the scientific world was oppressed by the 
sense of the finality of its own dicta. The indestructibility of 
matter, the conservation of energy and of momentum, the eternal 
sameness of the chemical atoms, the inevitable extinction of all 
life on the earth by loss of heat from the solar system, the 
never-ending alternation of evolution and dissolution of material 
systems, all these had become " axioms " whose rejection was 
said to be impossible for any sane mind. It was felt that little 
remained for science to do save the working out of equations to 
further decimal places. But now all that is changed,^ the scientific 
atmosphere is full of the hope of new insight, the seeming 
boundaries of physical knowledge have proved to be spectral 
creations of the scientific imagination ; there is a delightful 
uncertainty about even so fundamental a distinction as that 
between matter and energy ; electricity, which was a wave- 
movement of that collection of impossible attributes, the ether, is 
now said to consist of corpuscles having mass ; and light itself is 
in a fair way to become once more a rain of particles. One even 
hears whispered doubts about the law of the conservation of energy. 

From all this the biologist should learn that he need not 
confine his speculations strictly within the terms prescribed by 
the physical science of the moment ; that he should rather work 
out whatever explanatory principles he needs, in a certain relative 
independence of current physical doctrines. 

The arguments against Animism from inconceivability of 
psycho-physical interaction, and from the law of conservation of 
energy, have one fundamental weakness in common. Both assume 
that the notion of physical things or of physical energy is 
perfectly clearly defined. It is necessary therefore to insist on 
the fact that no one has ever proposed a definition of physical 
energy that shall mark it off from psychical energy ; although 
physicists and philosophers alike constantly make use of the 

^ See the assertion of Romanes, quoted on p. 93. Paulsen also declares it 
to be an axiom (" Einleitung," S. 95). 

^ See the Presidential Address of Sir J. J. Thomson to the British Association, 
1909. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 217 

phrase " physical energy " as though the term stood for a perfectly 
clearly defined concept. 

Now there seems to be only one way of defining physical 
things and physical energy in a perfectly unambiguous manner 
and in such a way as to give any force to the two arguments we 
are examining, and that is the way of kinetic mechanism, 
according to which scheme all physical things are mass-particles, 
and all physical energy is their momentum. Yet, no matter how 
useful this scheme may have proved, and may continue to prove, 
it is idle in view of the present state of physical science to assert 
that it represents the actual nature of all physical things or pro- 
cesses, or that it is the only useful and therefore the only legitimate 
way of conceiving them. 

If it be suggested that by the physical world is meant the 
world of things and processes that are capable of being perceived 
by us through the mediation of the senses, it must be pointed 
out that the physical world, as described by science, is quite other 
than this world of phenomena or appearances ; nor can it be 
described (as Kant demanded that it should be) in terms of 
things and processes that are in principle capable of being objects 
of sense-perception. Both physical and psychological science 
show that such a demand cannot be complied with. If we are 
to escape from Solipsism we have to believe that our sense- 
perceptions are in part caused by some system of external influences 
acting upon us ; and the various conceptions of the world about 
us built up by the physical and biological sciences are products 
of the attempt to conceive this system of external influences in 
the manner which will most effectively increase our power of 
understanding, foreseeing, and controUing the order of our sense- 
perceptions. Many of the most useful, and perhaps, in certain 
stages of the development of science, quite indispensable, concep- 
tions employed by it are conceptions of things or processes quite 
incapable in principle of becoming objects of sense-perception ; 
thus the two most essential and fundamental conceptions of 
present-day physical science, namely, those of energy (especially 
potential energy) and of the ether, are conceptions of things which 
are in principle incapable of being intuited, of being objects of 
sense-perception or of pictorial imagination.^ Rather, like all 

^ It is instructive in this connexion to reflect upon the way we regard heat 
and cold. As sensg-experiences heat and cold differ only as any two qualities 
of sensation differ ; their conditions, physical, physiological, and psychological, 
are similar in all respects ; yet heat has for long been regarded as a physical 



2i8 BODY AND MIND 

conceptions that become current in empirical science, they are 
hypotheses that work in some degree, that are useful aids in the 
task of bringing some order and intelligibility into the chaos of 
individual experience. In this respect the conceptions of energy, 
of ether, of entropy, and all the rest of the conceptions which 
constitute at present the apparatus of physical science, are on a 
par with the conceptions of the soul, of vital force, of psychical 
energy, of matter, of disembodied spirits. In so far as any of 
these, or any other conceptions, prove themselves valuable as 
members of the system of conceptions by which we strive to 
render our experience less unintelligible and to increase our means 
of controlling its course, they are valid, because useful. 

Energy, then, can only be defined as a capacity for exerting 
influence or producing change; and, unless we explicitly or (in 
the more usual fashion) tacitly assume that mind can exert no 
influence, or, in other words, that psychical energy docs not exist, 
psychical energy is included under this definition. Here we see 
again on a grander scale the argument in a circle as used by 
those who raise these objections to Animism. It is tacitly 
assumed that mind can exert no influence, and this premise is 
implicit in the phrase " energy " or " physical energy " as it is' 
used in the formulation of the law of the conservation of energy; 
and only if that is the case, can we deduce from the law the 
conclusion (thus introduced as a tacit assumption into the premise 
of the argument) that mind cannot affect matter. 

And when we are told, as by Paulsen in the passage quoted 
on p. 145, that physical scientists will always insist on explaining 
all events by the principles of physical causation and that it is 
right that they should do so, we must reply — What do you mean 
by " the physical," by " physical energy," by " physical causation " ? 
If you are prepared to stand by the description of the physical 
world given by atomic Materialism and to maintain that all 
physical things are hard particles and all physical processes the 
movements and collisions of those particles, then we understand 
you ; but we cannot accept your description,^ we cannot admit 

existent, a fluid, a thing, an energy, or a mode of energy ; while cold remains 
a mere secondary quaUty of objects, or a sensation without objective reference, 
as when we say " I am cold." This fact may serve to bring home to us the wide 
difference between sense-pefceptions and the conceptions of physical science. 

^ That Paulsen had constantly in mind this notion of the physical world is 
indicated by several passages in the " Einleitung," and the same is true probably 
of most of those who insist upon these arguments. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 219 

your right dogmatically to define the physical world in terms of 
the kinetic hypothesis ; and until you can offer some satisfactory 
definition your assertions must remain meaningless. Let me 
illustrate the impossibility of defining energy in a way that 
excludes psychical energy. Let us suppose that Bishop Berkeley's 
account of our sense-perceptions is the true one, and that they are 
all due to the direct action of the Divine Spirit upon our spirits ; 
then what we call the physical world is merely the sum of these 
divine actions, and the distinction between " the physical " and 
" the psychical " disappears. Now no one can prove that Berkeley's 
supposition is false ; we can only show that, for the purpose of 
increasing our control over our perceptions, it is less useful than 
the scheme devised by physical science.^ 

^ It seems worth while in connexion with this discussion to put before the 
reader the following considerations. If the theory of Animism and psycho- 
physical interaction is true, then in a certain limited sense the double-aspect 
doctrine of mind and body is also true. For, if our minds are capable of in- 
fluencing those processes or events that appear to us as physical phenomena, 
then the effects of such " action of mind on matter," if detected by us, will be 
detected only by inference (according to the principle of causation) from steps 
or changes in the sequence of phenomena or sense-perceptions; and, just as we 
infer from certain sense-perceptions a force or influence which, although we 
cannot directly perceive it, we conceive by the aid of the names magnetism or 
gravity, or chemical attraction, so we shall conceive more definitely by the 
aid of some name the force or influence which we infer as the cause of the changes 
in the phenomenal sequence produced by mind ; and if we persist in calling 
"physical," all the influences that we find it necessary to conceive in order to - 
fill our conceptual scheme of the causation of our sense-perceptions, then these 
activities of mind will be conceived as physical actions, or, in the loose phrase- 
ology current among us, they will appear (though indirectly inferred only) as . 
physical processes or phenomena. And if mind exerts its influence primarily on ■ 
brain-processes (or, pedantically, on those processes which appear to us in sense- 
perception as the phenomena of cerebral activity), then certain of the brain- 
processes that we conceive will be conceived under two aspects, on the one hand 
as the psychical activities of which each of us is directly aware, on the other hand 
as parts of the sequence of brain-processes our conceptions of which we build up • 
by elaborate processes of inference from our sense-perceptions. 

I may perhaps make my meaning clearer by turning again to Berkeley's sup- 
position, and modifying it in the following way. Let us suppose with Berkeley 
that the Divine Spirit and our finite spirits are the only real beings ; but let 
us suppose that not only the Divine Spirit acts directly on outs to induce our sense- 
perceptions, but that each of our spirits may act either in a similar way and to a 
limited extent directly upon other human spirits, or upon the Divine Spirit 
to modify in any way the influence that He exerts upon us. Then in either case, 
just as we build up our conception of the physical world and infer the occurrence 
of various physical processes from the sequence of the acts of the Divine Spirit, 
so these acts of human spirits, playing their minor parts in determining the 
sequence of our sense-perceptions, would be conceived by us as members of the ■ 



220 BODY AND MIND 

Since then, it is impossible to separate by definition, physical 
energy from psychical energy, and since organisms are, so far as we 
can see by the light of analogy, the only beings in which psychical 
influences directly operate, we must, if we wish to give any definite 
meaning to the word " physical " make it synonymous with 
"*' inorganic " ; physical processes are then such as go on in the 
inorganic realm. And we may accept the law of the conservation 
of energy as a well-based generalization for the inorganic realm. 
But we have no warrant for extending it to the realm of organisms, 
of life. Men we know to be psycho-physical systems or 
■organisms, and everything points to the view that certain of the 
processes of these organisms are psycho-physical processes, or 
processes in which psychical influences participate ; and we have 
good warrant for believing that all animals are also psycho- 
physical organisms. Again all living organisms show certain 
peculiarities of behaviour that are not exhibited by any inorganic 
aggregations of matter. The peculiarities of behaviour of living 
organisms, especially the power of resisting the tendency to 
■degradation of energy which seems to prevail throughout the 
inorganic realm, are correlated with, that is to say they constantly 
go together with, the presence of psycho-physical processes in 
them ; and this fact of correlation implies causal relation between 
the two things. 

No matter, then, how well based is the law of conservation of 
energy for the inorganic realm, it is quite illegitimate to extend 
it to the organic ; indeed, as we have seen, it is only by means of 
an argument in a circle that this extension can be given some 
appearance of plausibility. The few experiments which go to 
show that the energy given out by an organism is equal in amount 
to the energy taken in,^ are far too few and too rough to rule out 
the possibility that psychical effort may involve increment of energy 
to the organism ; for increments far too small to be detected might 
effect very important changes in the course of the organic processes. 

The issue of this too long discussion is, then, that neither the - 
difficulty we find in conceiving or imagining the mode of action 
of psychical energy, nor the law of the conservation of energy, 
rules out the possibility of psycho-physical interaction. So far as 

sequence of physical processes ; and, in so far as we were aware of them as 
psychical activities, we should conceive them under this aspect also and hence 
-as both psychical and physical. 
1 See p. 93. 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 22 n 

they are concerned, it remains open to us to believe either that 
mind may exert guidance upon the brain-processes, without doing 
work and therefore without altering the quantity of energy ; or 
that psychical activity may involve an influx of energy to the 
organism, which, even though small in amount, may exert a 
decisive influence. If on other grounds the reality of psychical 
energy or power of influence, as something of a different order 
from the energies of the inorganic realm, appears probable, we 
shall probably prefer the latter possibility ; and we may believe that 
the essential peculiarity of living organisms is that they serve as 
channels of communication or of transmission of energy or influence, 
from the psychical to the physical sphere ; ^ and we may believe 
also that the evolution of organisms has been essentially a process, 
by which they have become better adapted to play this unique role. 

The contentions of this chapter may be further enforced by 
the following considerations : — If it is impossible for science to 
render an intelligible account of the processes of the phenomenal 
world by the aid of the conception of mechanical causation alone 
(and that this is true of the organic realm is at least probable 
and may be maintained now with much greater force than when 
Kant recognized this probability), is science to be condemned, by 
the dictum of a highly disputable epistemology or by the natural 
prejudice of our minds in favour of mechanical and kinetic 
conceptions, to keep running its head for ever against a stone 
wall, obstinately refusing to attempt other lines of progress ?■ 
If science finds that it is working with conceptions inadequate 
to its task, may it not cast about and attempt to develop others 
that may prove more fruitful ? ^ 

Among arguments of this group adverse to Animism there 
still remains to be considered that urged by Prof Strong and 
stated on p. 123. It runs — the conception of the soul is reached by 

^ That this is true of the human organism has of course been widely beheved 
for long ages. Prof. James has recently presented very persuasively some of 
the empirical evidence which gives colour to this behef (" Energies of Men," 
Philosophical Review, 1907). 

^ The reader who remains unshaken in his prejudice in favour of mechanical 
explanations may be urged to make himself familiar with the brilliant and 
seductive works of Prof. H. Bergson, especially " Evolution Creatrice." Prof. 
Bergson maintains that the human intellect, having been developed for the 
guidance of our movements among material objects, is suited only for under- 
standing clearly spatial relations and changes, but that we possess other 
faculties which we must bring into play if we wish to gain any understanding 
of life. 



222 BODY AND MIND 

inference only, we have and can have no direct knowledge of it, 
whereas of consciousness we have the most immediate knowledge ; 
therefore in assigning the soul as the ground of our consciousness 
we are seeking to explain the known by the aid of the less 
known. This argument is only mentioned here lest it should 
seem that I have passed it over. It has been sufficiently 
answered in the course of my remarks upon the impossibility of 
banishing from our account of the world all notion of enduring 
things or beings. We saw there how Prof. Strong finds himself 
compelled to postulate psychical dispositions as imperfect 
substitutes for the soul or the body ; and how his doctrine 
leaves on his hands the problem — ■" What holds consciousness 
together?" This may serve as an admirable illustration of the 
general truth that we cannot explain or render intelligible the 
whole, or any part, of our experience without postulating the 
existence and agency of things that we have no means of 
knowing in any direct or immediate fashion. 

This argument is but an extreme expression of a curious 
tendency that repeatedly crops out in the writings of many 
philosophers; the tendency, namely, to assume that conceptual 
knowledge is untrustworthy and in some sense unreal, while in 
sense-perception (or in the perceptions of the mythical inner 
sense) we attain to knowledge of a much more real or more 
trustworthy, because more direct, order. This assumption appears 
in many of the discussions directed against the thing-for-itself 
and the independent reality of the physical world. It is 
thoroughly fallacious, ignoring as it does the fact that all our 
perceptions are shot through and through with conceptual 
activity, and that, only in proportion as perception is at the same 
time conception, is it raised from the level of mere awareness or 
feeling to the level of true knowing. If this tendency were 
consistently carried out, it would lead to the absurd result that 
the ideal knower is the new-born infant, or the lowly animal 
whose mental life hardly rises above the level of mere sentiency 
and appetite. 

We may conclude, then, that neither the argument from 
" the inconceivability of psycho-physical interaction," nor that 
from, the law of conservation of physical energy, nor any 
epistemological reasoning, can rule Animism out of court ^ ; that 

1 This is admitted b}^ the more enlightened opponents of Animism, e.g. 
by Paulsen, who wrote, " Hieriiber kann, als iiber eine Frage, die Tatsachen 



GENERAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 223 

the issue between Animism and Parallelism is one that must be 
settled by the methods of empirical science, i.e., by the appeal to 
observation and experiment and the weighing of the claims of 
rival hypotheses ; and that it is for us to prefer the hypothesis 
which gives most promise of leading us nearer to an understanding 
of ourselves and of our environment and to a more effective control 
over both. 

_ 

betrifft, allein durch Erfahrung entschieden werden. An sich sind beide denkbar. 
Ich betone ausdriicklich : ich halte auch die Theorie der Wechselwirkiing fiir 
denkbar " ; " wir konnen der Wirklichkeit nicht vorschreiben, was moglich 
Oder nicht moglich ist : denkbar is alias, ausgenommen der Widerspruch " 
(" Einleitung," S. 94). 



CHAPTER XVI 

EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 
DRAWN FROM PHYSIOLOGY AND GENERAL BIOLOGY 

IN this chapter we have to weigh critically the arguments 
against Animism provided by the biological sciences, and 
we will consider them in the order in which they are set 
forth in Chapter VIII. We saw in that chapter how the age-long 
search for the seat of the soul in the body seems to have been 
brought to a negative conclusion by modern research ; how the 
searchers tracked the soul to the brain, and tnen through many 
generations rummaged every corner of the brain to find some one 
spot at which the soul might be supposed to be present, to be 
acted on by the sensory nerves, and to react upon the motor 
nerves ; how the triumph of the doctrine of localization of 
cerebral functions in the last decades of the nineteenth century 
finally destroyed the hope of the discovery of such a punctual 
seat of the soul. We saw also how in the nineteenth century the 
study of those simplest actions called reflex actions showed that 
the bodily movement is connected with the sense-stimulus that 
evokes it by a chain of physical cause and effect, the transmission 
of a physical or chemical change through the reflex nervous arc ; 
and how at the same time it was shown that the whole nervous 
system is built up on a reflex plan, and that all nervous action is 
of the reflex type, involving always the transmission of the 
nervous impulse through systems of nerve cells and fibres, in 
which can be found no breach of physical continuity between 
afferent and efferent nerves, no indication of any gap in the chain 
of physical causation that might be supposed to be filled by a 
psychical link. We saw how this disappointment of the expecta- 
tion of finding a punctual seat of the soul, or some evidence of a 
gap in the chain of physical causation connecting sense-impression 
and bodily response, contributed to establish the view that all 
human actions may be physicalfy explained ; for, so the argument 
runs, if there is no seat of the soul withip the body there can be no 

224 



SPECIAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 225 

soul, and if there is no link missing from the chain of physical 
causation, there can be no psychical link. 

Now we must accept unreservedly in their main outlines the 
doctrines of localization of cerebral functions and of the reflex plan 
of the brain structure, but we must recognize that the reasoning 
by which they are made to seem adverse to Animism is 
unsound. 

The former doctrine will seem to make against interaction only 
to those who have accepted the scheme of kinetic mechanism as 
an actual and faithful picture of reality, and believe that all 
process is the movement of particles and all action the trans- 
mission of motion. Lotze has dealt with this point so admirably 
that I cannot do better than quote his words. He points out 
that " the root of all these difficulties seems to be a confusion in 
our idea of the nature of an acting force and of the relation of 
this force to spai^" " To be in one place," he says, " means 
nothing but to exert action and to be affected by action in that 
place " ; there can be no other meaning attached to the phrase 
" being in or at a place." Again he says, " any force arises between 
two elements out of a relation of their qualitative natures ; a relation 
which makes an interaction necessary for them, but only for them and 
their like " ; and he illustrates this by reference to the magnet, 
which exerts action upon, or rather is in reciprocal interaction 
with, bodies of certain qualities (the magnetic substances, iron, 
steel, nickel, and so on) in all parts of space surrounding it, but is 
indifferent to the great majority of substances scattered through 
the same space — wood, stone, organic substances generally. Just 
so, he says, " wherever there are elements with which the nature 
of the soul enables and compels it to interact, there it will be 
present and active ; wherever there is no such summons to action, 
there it will not be or will appear not to be." 

If, then, other objections to the conception of interaction are 
not insuperable, the absence of a punctual seat of the soul in the 
brain may be put aside as no difficulty; and we may agree with Lotze 
when he says — " the soul stands in that direct interaction which 
has no gradation, not with the whole of the world, nor yet with the 
whole of the body, but with a limited number of elements ; those 
elements, namely, which are assigned in the order of things 
as the most direct links of communication in the commerce of the 
soul with the rest of the world. On the other hand there is 
nothing against the supposition that these elements, on account of 

15 



226 BODY AND MIND 

other objects which they have to serve, are distributed in space, 
and that there are a number of separate points in the brain which 
form so many seats of the soul. At each of these the soul 
exercises one of those diverse activities which ought never to 
have been compressed into the formless idea of merely a single 
outgoing force " ; ^ that is to say, it is reasonable to suppose that 
we shall find in the brain a number of parts of very highly 
specialized physico-chemical constitution, the most highly 
organized forms of organized matter ; and that, whenever any one 
of these parts is thrown into activity, an action is exerted on the 
soul, which stimulates it to a response of which the first step is the 
production of a sensation of a certain quality, this quality being 
dependent upon the constitution of that part of the brain-substance 
and on the nature of the physical process which takes place in it. 

Now the development of brain-physiology has shown that within 
each of the sensory areas of the cortex we seem to have just such 
elements of supremely highly organized and specific constitution ; 
and our present knowledge enables us even to point with some 
plausibility to the varieties of this most highly specialized form 
of living matter as occupying places where the afferent neurons 
pass over their excitement to the efferent neurons. So at least 
I ventured to argue some fourteen years ago, in a paper the 
reasoning of which has not been refuted. 2 

Our modern and constantly increasing knowledge of the 
cerebral localization of mental functions is, then, not at all incom- 
patible with the conception of psycho-physical interaction ; but 
rather shows us a state of things in the brain just such as this 
conception, properly understood, seems to demand, such a state of 
things as is most easily reconcilable with this view. And in 
Chapter XXI. I shall try to show that the physiological facts of 
this group provide a basis for one of the strongest of the argu- 
ments that justify the conception of the soul. 

The demonstration of the continuity of all nervous processes 
within the nervous system, of the absence of any discoverable gap 
in the sequence of material causation which connects sense-impres- 

^ This and the preceding quotations are taken from I.otze's " Metaphysic," 
Bk. III. chap. V. (Eng. trans.). I should hke to cite many other passages, 
but instead will urge the reader to make himself acquainted with the whole 
of Book III. of that work. 

2 " Contribution towards an Improvement of Psychological Method " ("Mind," 
N.S., vol. vii.), and also " On the Seat of the Psycho-physical Processes " {" Brain," 
vol. xxiv.). 



SPECIAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 227 

sion with muscular reaction upon it, will seem to rule out psychical 
intervention in the causal series only to those who take an 
altogether too simple view of the nature of psycho-physical inter- 
action, the view namely that the whole causal sequence must, 
during some definite period of time, pass over into the psychical 
sphere, leaving a positive temporal gap or even a spatial and 
temporal gap in the sequence of nervous processes. Such a con- 
ception of psycho-physical interaction may be represented diagra- 
matically by Fig. i i, in which, as in the diagrams of Chapter XL, 



■O 



Fig. II. 

the black circles stand for brain-processes, the clear circle for 
psychical process, and the lines between for the causal links. 

No causation is adequately represented by a sequence of this 
sort — no effect is determined by a single cause, but always by a 
conjunction of causes. It is only by a convenient convention 
that we commonly single out what seems to us the most 
prominent of the causes, and call it the cause of the event and all 
the others merely necessary conditions. The false conception of 
causation which is engendered by this habit, is apt to be confirmed 
by our common use of the phrase, " a chain of cause and effect" ; 
for we habitually think of a chain as a series of single links, each 
of which is the sole connexion between its predecessor and its 
successor in the series. If we wish to use an illustrative analogy 
of this sort, we ought to speak of a 7iet-work of cause and effect, 
rather than of a chain. As soon as we do that, this particular 
objection to psycho-physical interaction falls to the ground. The 
observable continuity of the physical sequence seems to rule out 
psychical links so long only as we think of the causal sequence 
as a chain of single links ; but, clearly, it does not do so if we 
substitute a length, say, of chain-mail for the single strip of chain, 
in our pictorial imagining of the causal sequence ; then the fact 
that, in a certain transverse section (representing any one moment 
of time) of such a woven chain, some links are of steel will not 
seem^ to prove that other links may not be of a different 
constitution. 

If we would represent diagrammatically the causal relations 
of the brain-processes implied by the doctrine of psycho-physical 
interaction, the simplest figure that will serve for the purpose 



228 BODY AND MIND 

must have some such form as Fig. 12. Such a figure is of 
::ourse hopelessly inadequate, yet it may serve to warn us against 
the common error we are considering. 




Fig. 12. 



We may agree, then, with the opponents of Animism, when 
they tell us, as they so frequently do, that, if the brain and all its 
parts could be so magnified that the physiologists could wander 
through all its most delicate fibrils and study with the naked eye 
the movements of each molecule or atom, they would nowhere 
find any train of physical causation abruptly coming to an end 
without any further physical effects, and nowhere any train of 
physical events initiated de novo without physical antecedents. 
But we may nevertheless believe that, even if all the physical and 
chemical processes of the brain were perceptible by the physi- 
ologists as movements of particles, there might occur certain 
deflexions of the moving particles, or certain accelerations or 
restraints, which would remain inexplicable and unpredictable by 
mechanical principles. 

We saw that the modern doctrine of the reflex type of all 
nervous functions has made for the rejection of Animism in 
another way also ; namely, in conjunction with the doctrine of 
unconscious cerebration and with the physiological interpretation 
in terms of nervous habit of the account of mental process given 
by the " association-psychology," it has seemed to justify the 
claim that we can now understand in broad outlines the way in 
which all human action is mechanically determined, and that we 
have good evidence in support of the belief that the mechanism 
of the nervous system is adequate to the demands made of it by 
this view. 

As regards one part of this evidence, that, namely, to which 
Huxley attached so much importance and which consists in the 
fact that men sometimes perform very complex trains of seemingly 



SPECIAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 229 

purposive action of which they can afterwards remember nothing, 
of all this class of evidence it may be said at once that the 
argument based on it is now known to be fallacious ; it involved 
the assumption that all acts of which no memory can be evoked 
are performed unconsciously or, as it is said, automatically. 
Further study of such cases has shown that in many of them the 
loss of memory is temporary only, or that memory of the actions 
can be evoked by special procedures. And this shows that 
absence of memory of any action or train of action is not good 
evidence that the action was unconsciously performed, and forbids 
us to infer from such lack of memory that complex purposive 
action can be carried out unconsciously. This part of the evi- 
dence against Animism therefore falls to the ground. 

This however does not dispose of the whole basis of the claim 
that a sufficiently detailed knowledge of the structure and function 
of the nervous system would provide complete explanations of 
human behaviour. But at this stage of our inquiry it must 
suffice to point out that whatever plausibility this claim may have 
is derived in the main from a spurious or undue simplification of 
the account of the nature of mental process, and from the ignoring 
of enormous gaps in our knowledge of, and even in our hypo- 
thetical schemes of, the physiological mechanisms which it is sought 
to make responsible for all the course of mental process and of 
bodily action ; that " the association-psychology," which alone 
gives plausibility to this claim, is now universally admitted to have 
left out of account the most essential and characteristic aspect of 
mental process, namely its purposive selectivity ; and that the 
assimilation of all memory to mechanical association presents 
difficulties which up to the present time appear to be insuperable.^ 

We shall have to consider the evidence of this class more fully 
when, in a later chapter, we shall approach it from the opposite 
point of view and inquire — Does not our knowledge of the bodily 
processes now suffice to prove that human conduct cannot be 
accounted for on mechanical principles ? 

But we must consider for a moment at this point all that class 
of physiological evidence which has made strongly in favour of 
Epiphenomenalism among the physiologists, by proving the de- 
pendence of our mental life upon the integrity of the structure and 
chemical constitution of the brain. 

Now, it is quite illogical to hold that these facts rule out inter- 
^ See chap. xxiv. 



230 BODY AND MIND 

action, or prove that the action between soul and body is a one- 
sided action of body on soul without reciprocal action of soul on 
body. For it is quite possible to match the array of facts which seem 
to prove the action of the body on the soul, with an equally im- 
posing array of facts which seem to prove the influence of psychical 
processes, of feeling, emotion, desire, and volition, upon the body. 
And, if we take these two classes of facts at their face value, 
without attempting to explain them away by such subtleties as 
the identity-hypothesis, they indicate very strongly reciprocal 
action and reciprocal dependence of our bodily and our psychical 
processes. 

The only form of interaction theory which may perhaps be 
held to be ruled out by the facts of this group, is that which 
assumes that the psychical processes are self contained and inde- 
pendent of all bodily correlates and conditions, excepting only 
the rise of sensation and the initiation of bodily movement. 
Against such a doctrine of interaction the facts of the class we 
are considering do tell very strongly. But they are on the other 
hand just such as are demanded by a doctrine of intimate inter- 
action of soul and body all along the line of mental process ; 
for, if our mental life is the interplay of these two factors, soul 
and brain, their co-operation is presumably essential to it, and the 
fact that the incapacity of the one (the brain) to perform its part 
deranges or puts a stop to the interplay, does not prove that the 
other (the soul) is not essential, that it plays no effective part, or 
that it does not exist. 

Under the heading, the composite nature of the mind, we 
noticed in Chapter VIII. how certain facts of animal morphology 
and physiology on the one hand and certain pathological mental 
conditions on the other hand seem to force upon us the view that 
our individual consciousness is neither strictly unitary nor indi- 
visible, and that such unity as it has is conditioned by the func- 
tional continuity of the parts of the nervous system. I propose 
to devote a later chapter to the discussion of the problem of the 
unity of consciousness, and here will only say that, although the 
facts of these two orders raise, as it seems to me, the greatest of 
all the difficulties in the way of Animism, they present difficulties 
no less great whatever view be taken of the relation between mind 
and body. 

We have seen that the postulate of the continuity of evolu- 
tion of the organic from the inorganic realm is made the basis of 



SPECIAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 231 

a general argument against Animism (p. 120) as well as of a 
special argument in favour of the identity-hypothesis (p. 142). 
We may deal with both arguments at this point ; there are more 
ways than one in which both may be undermined. One way is 
totally to reject the postulate ; but, if we do that, we must be ready 
with some alternative suggestion as to the origin of life on the earth. 
One such suggestion has been made by a great physicist, the late 
Lord Kelvin. He pointed to the fact that the earth as a material 
system has not been a closed system, but rather has been con- 
stantly receiving new additions of matter from outside in the 
form of meteorites ; and he suggested that living matter was 
not evolved from inorganic matter upon the earth, but was 
perhaps brought to it in some lowly form upon a meteorite 
coming from some region in which life already existed, and that 
this organic matter was the parent of all the forms of life later 
evolved upon the earth. 

Now this is not a very satisfactory solution of the difficulty. 
For, first, there is the great improbability of organic matter being 
conveyed upon a meteorite from some remote region, some 
world which had been shattered in some great disaster ; it is 
difficult to suppose that any organism could have survived this 
disaster as well as the fiery ordeal of the descent upon the earth. 
Secondly, apart from this objection, the suggestion does but carry 
the difficulty one step further back and transfer it to some other 
material sphere, where the same problem confronts us. 

The former objection applies less forcibly perhaps to the more 
recent suggestion of a similar kind (which comes, I believe, from 
another distinguished physicist, Prof S. Arrhenius), namely that 
life was brought to the earth in the form of minute germs travelling 
through space under the driving power of " light-pressure." But 
the second objection applies equally to this form of the 
suggestion. 

Let us then accept the evolution of organic forms from 
inorganic matter on this earth as the most probable view. There 
remain two possibilities of reconciliation with interactionism : 

(i) We may suppose that, as Lloyd Morgan and other 
parallelists have argued, the inorganic matter from which 
organic matter was evolved had some germ or rudiment of 
capacity for psychical life ; this supposition tells against psycho- 
physical interaction only if we accept another supposition, namely 
tha-t inorganic matter does absolutely obey purely mechanical; 



232 BODY AND MIND 

laws. But now this cannot be admitted as completely proved. 
In the experiments on which the physicists rely as the inductive 
empirical foundation of their strict mechanical laws and their sweep- 
ing generalizations and predictions of future events, they deal in all 
cases according to their own teaching with immense numbers of 
material units, atoms, or molecules, or vortex rings, or what not. 
Now, if these units have any rudiment of psychical life, as the 
argument from continuity of evolution is held to demand, then 
they may be truly individuals, psychic beings of like nature with 
ourselves ; their behaviour may be to some extent determined by 
purpose and psychical striving, and therefore not strictly 
mechanical ; yet the experiments of the physicist would fail to 
detect the fact, just because their experiments deal always with 
immense numbers of units and their empirical laws are statements 
of statistical averages. For it is found that even the actions of 
human beings, if dealt with in very large numbers, seem to be 
capable of being stated in wide generalizations and of being 
predicted on the basis of such empirical statistical generalizations, 
e.g., it can be predicted with some confidence that a given propor- 
tion of the total population of a country will marry in each of the 
four seasons of the year, or will commit suicide or murder, and so 
on ; the purposive individuality of the units is masked by this 
statistical mode of treatment. 

Now some statisticians have argued that the possibility of 
stating such general laws of human behaviour proves it to be 
subject to the same rigid mechanical determination as is generally 
assumed to rule over the processes of inorganic matter. But 
surely a more valid inference is that, if statistical treatment can 
make even such undeniably purposive and teleological and in- 
dividual events as marriages and suicides appear to be purely 
mechanically determined, it must inevitably have the same effect 
when applied to events in which the numbers of units dealt with 
are much greater, and in which the psychical operations are, by 
the hypothesis, of a relatively simple kind ! That is to say, if we 
accept the argument from continuity of evolution to the animation 
of inorganic matter (as the parallelists do), then it is quite open to 
us to believe that psycho-physical interaction prevails throughout 
the scale, and that the process of organic evolution has been 
essentially the progressive organization of matter in such a way 
as will allow always greater and greater influence to the teleo- 
logical and psychical laws, relatively to the mechanical, Or, to put 



SPECIAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST ANIMISM 233 

the supposition in a rather different way, we may suppose that all 
things are monads or system of monads and that organic evolu- 
tion has consisted in the parallel evolution of those systems of 
simple monads v/hich appear to us as the bodies of animals and of 
those higher monads which, by reason of their higher powers, play 
a dominant role in the life of organisms, controlling the systems 
of subordinate simple monads. 

But there remains yet another possibility. We may accept the 
postulate in the sense that we regard complex molecules of non- 
living m.atter as having begun gradually to exhibit the characteristic 
signs of life and mind ; and yet we may maintain that this was 
due to the co-operation of a new factor. The assumption of 
the continuity of evolution of living things from inorganic matter, 
in the sense which rules out the incoming of any new factor, is 
a very great assumption which nothing compels us to accept ; it 
has in fact but the slender basis of the demand for symmetry and 
simplicity made by our minds. The gap between the organic 
and the inorganic in nature is an immense one ; the two kinds of 
material phenomena present fundamental differences, and there is 
every appearance of the incoming of a new factor with the first 
living things, a teleological factor which is capable of working 
against or controlling the physical law of the degradation of 
energy, a law which seems to rule throughout the inorganic 
world. 

\ Suppose, then, that we had a full history of the evolution of 
organic beings from inorganic matter by slow steps of gradually 
increasing complexity of molecular organization ; suppose that 
the progress of synthetic chemistry enabled us to reprQduce the 
steps of this evolution in the chemical laboratory and to bring 
about the appearance of living organisms by way of abiogenesis ; 
even that would not prove that the psychical did not begin to 
intervene in the material processes at the point at which the 
increasing complexity of molecular organization rendered possible 
or necessary the co-operation of this new factor ; a factor latent 
or inoperative up to that point because the conditions which permit 
of its co-operation were lacking. For if, as all facts indicate, certain 
physico-chemical conditions are necessary conditions of the co- 
operation of the psychical factor, then that factor will have begun 
to co-operate only when those necessary conditions were realized. 
We saw in Chapter IX. that the triumph of the Darwinian 
principles is held to make against Animism, not only by compelling 



234 BODY AND MIND 

us to accept the principle of continuity of evolution, but also 
because it provides a mechanical explanation of so much in the 
organic world that formerly was confidently regarded as the 
product of teleological determination. It must be noted, however, 
that only the Neo-Darwinian or Weismann school maintains 
the all-sufficiency of the principle of natural selection to explain 
biological evolution, and that many eminent biologists find it im- 
possible to accept this view. Further, we must note that, even 
if the Neo-Darwinian doctrine be accepted, its one great 
explanatory principle, natural selection, presupposes the struggle 
for life among organisms. And this struggle, though in its lower 
stages it may express merely blind craving and impulse without 
clear foresight of any end, is essentially teleological ; and such 
persistent striving, which is manifested not only by all animals, 
but also in less degree by plants, is th& most characteristic mark 
of organic or living beings. 

It is not true, then, that Darwinism has abolished the need for 
teleological explanation in biology ; at most it has suggested 
the possibility and the hope of complete mechanical explanation. 
In a later chapter I shall have occasion to show more fully that 
the hope is illusory. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE INADEQUACY OF MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS IN 

PHYSIOLOGY 

WE have seen in an earlier chapter how, about the middle 
of the nineteenth century, the rapid progress of physical 
and chemical science gave rise to a new wave of 
Materialism ; and how physiologists, with few exceptions, began 
to regard Vitalism as finally overcome and to look confidently 
forward to the explanation of all the processes of living organisms 
in terms of physics and chemistry ; growth was to be explained 
as a mere assimilation of molecules after the manner of the growth 
of crystals ; secretion as a mere filtration or osmosis or as a con- 
junction of these two processes ; all regulation of movement and 
of other processes by the nervous system as mere reflex action. 

But now, after another half-century of active physiological 
research to which many hundreds of able men have devoted their 
lives, the achievement of the program so confidently laid down 
seems to have been brought no nearer. It has rather to be 
admitted that greater knowledge has revealed new difficulties on 
every hand ; that no part of the program has been achieved ; 
that no single organic function has been found to be wholly 
explicable on physical and chemical principles ; that in every 
case there is manifested some power of selection, of regulation, of 
restitution, or of synthesis, which continues completely to elude 
all attempts at mechanical explanation. Even so simple a process 
as the secretion of fluid through a very thin membrane shows 
itself to be other than, and more than, a process of filtration or 
osmosis ; and of even that most characteristic of all the animal 
functions, the contraction of muscle fibres, no mechanical explana- 
tion has proved acceptable to any considerable number of 
physiologists.^ In the address to which I have referred 

1 To the best of my judgment, of all the many hypotheses put forward to 
explain muscular contraction, the only one that offers a complete and strictly 
mechanical explanation of the process is the one suggested by myself in my 
papers in the " Journal of Anatomy and Physiology," 1897 and 1898. Neither the 
hypothesis itself, nor the attempt on which it is based, namely, the attempt to make 
use only of strictly mechanical conceptions, have met with any general approval. 

235 



236 BODY AND MIND 

above/ Dr Haldane said : " If in some ways the advance of Phy- 
siology seems to have taken us nearer to a physico-chemical ex- 
planation of life, in other ways it seems to have taken us further away. 
On the one hand we have accumulating knowledge as to the phy- 
sical and chemical sources and the ultimate destiny of the material 
and energy passing through the body : on the other hand an 
equally rapidly accumulating knowledge of an apparent teleological 
ordering of this material and energy ; and for the teleological 
ordering we are at a loss for physico-chemical explanations. 
There was a time, about fifty years ago, when the rising generation 
of physiologists in their enthusiasm for the first kind of knowledge 
closed their eyes to the second. That time is past, and we must 
once more face the old problem of life." ^ 

He states the case against the view that metabolic processes 
are nothing but physico-chemical processes in the following way. 
If the mechanical assumption is true, the special complex 
functions of each cell imply correspondingly specific and complex 
structural mechanism within it. " To take an example, a secreting 
cell in the kidney may be assumed to have a structure which 
responds to the stimulus of a certain percentage of urea or sodium 
chloride in the blood, and reacts in such a manner that energy 
derived from oxidation is so directed as to perform the work of 
taking up urea or sodium chloride from the blood and transferring 
it against varying osmotic pressures from one end of the cell to 
the other. This mechanism must also be assumed to have the 
property of maintaining itself in v/orking order, and probably 
also of reproducing itself under appropriate stimuli, besides also 
performing various other functions. Its physico-chemical structure 
must thus be very definite and complex — to an extent which the 
older physico-chemical theories took no account of If we look 
to the cells in other parts of the body we are met with the same 
necessity for assuming complexities of structure which seem to 
grow in extent with every advance in physiological knowledge, 
every discovery of new substances present within or around the 
cells, every discovery of new physiological reactions." 

The assumption that all the cells of the active tissues of the 

1 P. 190. 

2 To the same effect Prof. E. B. Wilson — " The investigation of cell activity 
has on the whole rather widened than narrowed the great gulf which separates 
the lowest forms of life from the phenomena of the inorganic world " ("The Cell," 
1900). 



INADEQUACY OF MECHANISM IN PHYSIOLOGY 237 

body have such extremely complex definite and specific physico- 
chemical structure is sufficiently difficult. But this is only the 
beginning of the difficulty. The difficulty is increased a thousand- 
fold when we try to understand in accordance with the assumption 
the way in which these cells, each having its perfectly specific and 
highly complex structure, are produced and the way in which 
they are arranged to form tissues and organs, reproducing with 
extreme faithfulness the plan of the structure of the species. 
" The adult organism develops from a single cell, the fertilized 
ovum. It is certain that this cell does not contain in a preformed 
condition the structure of an adult organism. The conditions of 
environment in which any particular ovum develops itself are 
doubtless indefinitely complex from the physico-chemical stand- 
point, as indeed is the environment of any particular portion of 
matter existing anywhere. But these conditions also vary almost 
indefinitely in the case of different ova, whereas the adult organism 
to which the ovum gives rise reproduces in minute detail the 
enormously complex characters of the parent organism. We are 
thus driven to the assumption that the ovum contains within 
itself a structure which, given certain relatively simple conditions 
in the environment, reacts in such a way as to build up step by 
step, from materials in the environment, the structure of the adult 
organism. To effect this the germ-cell must have a structure 
almost infinitely more definite and complex than that of any cell 
in the adult organism." In this way we are led to see that the 
physico-chemical doctrine of life must postulate in the germ-cell a 
physico-chemical mechanism of a complexity beside which that 
of any tissue-cell of the developed organism, wonderfully great as 
that must be supposed to be, seems simplicity itself. For the 
mechanism of that germ-cell must, if the assumption be true, 
somehow contain the potentiality of the specific, complex, and 
widely different mechanisms of all the cells of all the many 
different tissues of the body ; and at the same time it must 
contain the potentiality of the exact but very complex grouping 
of these cells within the tissues, and of the ordering of the various 
tissues in relation to one another, relations which again are of 
extreme complexity, involving in almost all organs not merely 
definite juxtapositions of cells and tissues, but the most complex 
interpenetrations of tissues of several kinds, e.g. liver-cells, con- 
nective tissues, blood-vessels, nerves and ducts, in the case of 
such an organ as the liver. It must be remembered also that, 



238 BODY AND MIND 

according to the assumption we are examining, the mechanism of 
the germ-cell must contain the potentiality of determining not 
only the structure and functions of the organs of the vegetative 
life, and of the muscles, bones, skin, and hair, in short, of all that 
presents itself to our immediate observation in the adult organism ; 
but also, most incredible of all, it must contain the potentiality of 
of all that secret structure within the nervous system which is 
supposed to be the mechanical basis of all the inherited mental 
powers ; all the enormously complex and precise structure which 
must underlie such functions as spatial perception and the various 
modes of instinctive behaviour that are proper to each species. 

And the ovum must somehow contain (according to the 
assumption), in the form of precise spatial arrangements of 
highly complex molecules, the potentialities not only of all the 
characters that the individual has in common with all members of 
his species, but also of all the inherited peculiarities which dis- 
tinguish him from his fellows, such characters as musical or 
mathematical genius, or those idiosyncracies or tricks of thought 
and manner and feeling, whose innateness is proved by their 
cropping out in various members of a family who have not come 
into personal contact with one another.^ Nor is this all ; for, 
besides the specific and the individual innate characters of the 
adult, we have to attribute to the germ-plasm a large number of 
potentialities that remain latent. " Besides visible changes which 
it (the germ-cell) undergoes, we must believe that it is crowded 
with invisible characters proper to both sexes, to both the right 
and the left sides of the body, and to a long line of male arid 
female ancestors separated by hundreds and even thousands of 
generations from the present time ; and these characters, like those 
written on paper in invisible ink, lie ready to be evolved whenever 
the organism is disturbed by certain known or unknown conditions."^ 

^ The close resemblance sometimes observed in twins brought up under 
different circumstances is especially important in this connexion. For such 
cases see Galton's " Inquiry into Human Faculty." Such peculiarities as the 
colour of hair or feathers, or the shape of the comb of fowls, may with some 
plausibility be attributed to the presence or absence of an atom of some element 
in some atom-group of the germ-plasm, or to the substitution of an atom of one 
element for that of another. But what difference of atoms or of atom-groups in 
the germ-plasm can be supposed to determine that of two men, perhaps two 
brothers, one shall be a musical genius, appreciating and composing difficult 
orchestral music at a tender age, while the other remains throughout life in- 
capable of reproducing or even of recognizing the simplest melody. 

2 Darwin's " Variation of Animals and Plants," ii. p. 26, 



INADEQUACY OF MECHANISM IN PHYSIOLOGY 239 

Further, this viscid speck of matter, the germ-plasm, has to 
be supposed not only to be at any moment or period of its 
existence a structure of this enormous complexity, precision, and 
definiteness, but also to preserve this structure with extreme 
faithfulness through thousands and millions of years and in spite 
of all the vicissitudes of constantly repeated division and constant 
growth by assimilation of new matter.^ 

But to all the considerations of the foregoing paragraphs the 
convinced mechanist replies that argument of this kind, relying 
as it does on our ignorance of the details of cellular structure and 
on the limitation of our powers of constructive imagination, 
carries no conviction and is incapable of disproving his assumption. 
And in his eyes it will probably add nothing to the case against his 
view, to point out that we can find in inorganic nature no process 
remotely analogous to the growth of the complex organism out of 
the germ-cell, no case in which a piece of mechanism can effect 
the reproduction of itself by growth and division, let alone the 
production of a swarm of other mechanisms of various kinds each 
complex and definite and differing widely from all the rest. 

Hence considerable importance attaches to the results 
of experimental interferences with the growth of organisms. 
Driesch and others have made many experiments which show 
that the development of an organism may be interfered with at 
variohs stages in the most gross mechanical manner without pre- 
venting the production of the typical form of the species, a perfect 
complex organism. A very few examples only of many similar 
cases can be noted here. Many germs pass through a stage in 
which they consist of a number of cells arranged in the form of a 
hollow sphere or other simple symmetrical solid figure. In some 
cases an embryo in such a stage, in which differentiation of its 
cells has been clearly manifested, may be subjected to such dis- 
tortions as being pressed out into a flat disc or cut into two parts, 
and will nevertheless rectify the course of its development, thus 
grossly disturbed, and will grow up into the typical form. In 
many other cases, if a part of an organism is taken away by 
mechanical violence, the remaining part regenerates the lost part, 
and so restores the complete organism. The case of the newt's 
limbs is perhaps the most widely known, and is sufficiently strik- 

1 The necessity of attributing to the germ-plasm this astonishing stabihty 
is forcibly insisted upon by Dr Archdall Reid, " Laws of Heredity," London, 
1910, p. 94- 



240 BODY AND MIND 

ing and incompatible with the mechanistic assumption ; for, as 
Driesch points out, the trans-section of the Hmb may be made '■ 
through any plane, and in every case just so much as is lopped off 
grows anew from the cut surface. In other cases so much may 
be cut away from the body of an organism that a mere fragment 
of highly specialized function remains ; and yet such a fragment 
regenerates the whole organism. A particularly striking case is 
that of Clavellina, an ascidian, that is to say, an animal organism 
of considerable complexity. " You first isolate the branchial 
apparatus from the other part of the body (which other part 
contains heart, stomach, and most of the intestine), and then you 
cut it in two in whatever direction you please. Provided they 
survive and do not die, as indeed many of them do, the pieces 
obtained by this operation will each lose its organization (becoming 
a mere sphere of cells devoid of specialized structure) . . . and 
then will each acquire another one, and this new organization is 
also that of a complete little Clavellina^ ^ 

In some cases again, organisms of the same species mutilated 
in closely similar fashion will go through two, or even three (e.g. 
Tubularia ^), very different courses of restitution, all of which 
have the same result, namely, complete restitution of the normal 
form.^ 

Now the mechanistic view necessarily assumes that the 
course of development must be determined in large part by the 
spatial relations between the constituent parts of the physico- 
chemical mechanism ; for the reciprocal influences of the parts of 
the mechanism are essential causes of the progressive develop- 
ment, and these influences must vary with every change of the 
spatial relations of the parts. But in experiments of the kind 
we are considering the spatial relations of the parts of the 
" machine " are very much altered by the experimental interfer- 
ences ; in some cases being utterly distorted by violent disloca- 
tions, in others some of the parts being entirely removed. And 

^ "Philosophy and Science of the Organism," vol. i. p. 130. 

2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 160. 

^ A specially striking instance of regeneration is that of the lens of the eye of 
Triton. In the normal course of development, the substance of the lens is 
formed from the epidermal or ecto-dermal tissue ; but, when the lens has been 
removed from the eye of the adult organism, it is regenerated by growth of 
tissue from the edge of the iris, a mesodermal tissue. The first description of 
this phenomenon was generally received with scepticism by the biologists. But 
it has been confirmed by several observers, and seems to have been fully estab- 
lished. (See T. H. Morgan's " Regeneration," p. 204.) 



INADEQUACY OF MECHANISM IN PHYSIOLOGY 241 

yet in spite of this the normal course of development and the 
normal structure are re-established. 

This argument, which comprises Driesch's second and third 
proofs of Vitalism or, as he prefers to say, of the autonomy of 
life processes, is so important that it seems worth while to restate 
it in a rather different way. 

According to the mechanistic view, the germ-cell must contain 
a number of complex constituents, presumably highly complex con- 
stituents, the reciprocal interplay between which largely determines 
the course of development. So long as the development consists 
merely in the repeated division of the germ-cell into daughter- 
cells, each of which resembles all the rest and occupies a similar 
position in the whole (which is only possible so long as the whole 
remains of spherical shape), we may suppose that every constituent 
of the germ-cell is represented in each daughter cell by a similar 
constituent derived by fission from that of the mother-cell (in the 
way that the chromatin filaments of the nucleus may be seen to 
undergo symmetrical division). But, as soon as the embryo 
becomes a-symmetrical, or its cells exhibit any degree of differ- 
entiation, we are compelled to suppose one of two things, or both 
of them : (i) either the divisions of the cells are no longer such 
as to render all the constituents of each dividing cell to each of its 
progeny, so that the cells become unlike one another in that they 
contain different constituents ; or (2) while cell-divisions continue 
to be such in every case as to give to both daughter-cells all the 
constituents of the mother-cell, the cells begin to play different 
parts owing to the differences of their positions in the whole and 
the consequent differences of the incidence of the environmental 
influences or stimuli on the cells ; e.g. if, while the cells remain of 
entirely similar constitution, they hang together forming a solid 
sphere, those forming the outer layer of the sphere will be sub- 
jected to environmental influences different from those affecting 
the cells that remain in the interior of the sphere. The facts of 
restitution of form and function after mutilation seem to compel 
the mechanist to adopt this second view in the case of some 
organisms, notably those of which (as in the case of Begonia) any 
small fragment or even, it is said, any one cell regenerates the 
complete organism. And, since all organisms are capable in some 
degree of restitution of parts, it would seem necessary to suppose 
that all cells of all organisms contain all the constituents of the 
germ-cell, and that all differentiation of the functions of the cells is 
16 



242 BODY AND MIND 

produced by differentiation of the environmental setting of the 
cells. It is difficult, if not impossible, to suppose that such 
differentiation of the environments of the cells can suffice to 
determine all the differentiations of structure and function of the 
parts of a complex organism. But it is clear that, in so far as 
development depends on this differentiation and specialization of 
environmental setting of the cells, it must be seriously disturbed and 
diverted irrecoverably from its normal course by any gross mechani- 
cal distortion of the spatial relations of the cells within the whole 
mass, or by any change of shape forcibly impressed upon the whole 
from without. But experiment shows that this is not the case ; 
therefore this form of the mechanistic view of development is false. 

The alternative possibility is equally incompatible with the 
results of experimental interferences with development. Accord- 
ing to this view the essential constituents of the germ cells are 
apportioned differently to the daughter cells in the processes of 
division, one cell receiving one group of constituents, another a 
group different in less or greater degree. In this case, then, the 
differentiations of environment of the cells are supplemented by the 
differentiations of constitution of the cells ; but the preservation of 
the normal spatial relations of the cells must be of even more vital 
importance than on the previous supposition ; for the cells are of 
varied composition, and the course of development of each cell and 
tissue must depend largely upon the reciprocal influences exerted 
between itself and its neighbours ; and these influences must be 
largely a function of the spatial relations between the cells of 
different constitution ; hence the slightest dislocation of the 
relative positions of the cells within the whole must be fatal to 
the development of the normal form ; and still more must it be 
impossible for a mere fragment of the whole adult organism to 
regenerate the form of the whole.^ 

The building up of the structure of the organism cannot, then, 
be determined only by the reciprocal influences of parts of special- 
ized constitution playing upon one another according to their 
spatial relations ; that is to say that the building up of the 
structure cannot be a mechanically determined process. 

The embryo seems to be resolved to acquire a certain 

form and structure, and to be capable of overcoming very great 

obstacles placed in its path. There is here something analogous 

to the persistence of the efforts of any creature to achieve its ends 

1 As in the case of Clavellina, mentioned above. 



INADEQUACY OF MECHANISM IN PHYSIOLOGY 243 

or purposes and the satisfaction of its needs under the driving 
power of instinctive impulse or craving. In both cases, mechanical 
obstacles turn aside the course of events from their normal or direct 
path ; but, in whatever direction or in whatever manner the turn- 
ing aside is caused, the organism adjusts itself to the changed 
conditions, and, in virtue of some obscure directive power, sets 
itself once more upon the road to its goal ; which under the altered 
conditions it achieves only by means of steps that are different, 
sometimes extremely different, from the normal. 

This power of persistently turning towards a particular end or 
goal, manifested in these two ways, namely, in growth and bodily 
movement, is the most characteristic feature of the life of organisms, 
objectively regarded. It seems to involve essentially teleological 
determination ; that is to say it seems to be essentially of the same 
nature as the striving towards a goal or end that runs through all 
our inner experience, the goal being present to consciousness with 
extremely different degrees of clearness and fulness. It seems to 
be quite impossible to explain such apparently teleological be- 
haviour of organisms in terms of mechanism. Nothing analogous 
to it can be found in the inorganic realm. Perhaps it may be 
suggested that the behaviour of a gyroscope is analogous ; it 
resists our attempts to turn it out of its plane of motion. But 
really there is no analogy here ; it is merely a special case of the 
tendency of any mass to persist in its line of motion ; when 
sufficient force is used and the plane of the gyroscope deflected, 
it persists just as blindly in the new as in the original plane of 
motion, showing no tendency to return to the latter ; whereas, the 
organism, when turned aside from its natural course of growth or 
of movement, will not rest satisfied with the new conditions, but 
tries one thing after another until it regains the path towards its 
goal, or restores its original condition. 

The development and restitution of the forms of organisms 
seem, then, to be utterly refractory to explanation by mechanical 
or physico-chemical principles ; and that, from the point of view of 
the present argument, is the essential point. The processes seem 
to be essentially teleological, that is to say, they seem analogous 
to the behaviour of organisms, which from analogy with our own 
experience of purposive striving we believe to be prompted by 
psychical impulse and, in the more highly developed organisms at 
least, governed and guided by some prevision of the end to be 
achieved. And these indications cannot be set aside, though we 



244 BODY AND MIND 

have to confess that we cannot form any conception of the way 
in which this teleological guidance of morphogenesis is effected. 

This seems the proper place to draw attention to a fact fre- 
quently overlooked by the mechanistic biologists. Putting aside 
all consideration of development, the perfected adult organism is 
said to be a highly complex machine. The fact of the existence 
of machines, the fact that aggregates of inorganic matter may be 
so arranged as to effect, without further human interference, purely 
mechanical transformations of the energy supplied to them, so as to 
produce highly complex products such as woven cloth, melodies, 
printed pages ; this fact is held to show the legitimacy of the sup- 
position that the bodies of living organisms also may produce 
all their seemingly designed effects according to strictly mechanical 
principles. But this argument overlooks a fact of fundamental 
importance, the fact namely that every machine, though it works 
according to strictly mechanical principles, is essentially a teleo- 
logical structure ;' that is to say its genesis is due to the purpose 
and design of which it is the instrument only ; every step of its 
construction, every detail of its structure, is determined by human 
purpose and intelligence. The man-made machine is then an em- 
bodiment of purpose and intelligence, and, if we do not beg the 
question in dispute by calling organisms machines, we cannot point 
to any machine, however simple, which does not embody human 
purpose and intelligence ; inorganic nature produces no machines, 
not even of the very simplest kind. ' 

To liken organisms to machines is, then, not to say that they 
and their processes can be in principle explained in terms of 
mechanism ; it is rather to assert their teleological nature. The 
question remains-— Are they, like machines, inert embodiments of 
purpose, or are they actuated by purpose ? ^ 

The teleological nature of organisms and their processes is 
then one fundamental characteristic which compels us to regard 
them as not wholly subject to the purely mechanical or physico- 
chemical laws of inorganic nature ; and to say that they are 
machines is but one way of asserting this distinction. 

Organisms present a second great peculiarity that marks 
them off from the inorganic world. In the inorganic realm all 

^ Driesch distinguishes these two modes of manifestation of teleological 
control as statical and dynamical teleology respectively, and rightly insists 
that the latter (which alone implies true vitahsm) is implied by the facts of the 
kind we have considered above (" Vitalismus als Geschicte u. Lehre," Leipzig, 
1905). 



INADEQUACY OF MECHANISM IN PHYSIOLOGY 245 

transformations of energy involve dissipation of energy, degrada- 
tion of energy of higher potential into forms of lower potential ; so 
that, if the physical energy of the universe is a finite quantity, it 
is brought by all physical changes nearer to a final equilibrium 
in which the absence of differences of potential shall render im- 
possible further change or work, further transformation of energy ; 
or, in more technical language, in the inorganic world energy tends 
to become unavailable, entropy tends towards a maximum. 

But the processes of organisms seem to be exceptions to 
this law ; organisms seem to be capabffe of overcoming the 
tendency of energy to be degraded ; the metabolic processes are 
in large part synthetic, and they result in the raising of energy to 
higher levels of potential in the form of substances peculiarly 
rich in energy : and in the operations of the nervous system we 
seem to have positive indications of a similar power of raising 
energy to higher levels. This power seems to be one of the 
essential marks that distinguish the living from the non-living, 
the organic from the inorganic. It is true that chemists 
have after long research learnt to effect some very sim.ple 
examples of such synthesis, starting with non-living and in fact 
inorganic matter ; but that fact does not diminish the significance 
of this peculiarity of organisms. The case is parallel to that of 
the machines ; here again the peculiarities of organic processes 
are reproduced in the inorganic sphere, but only through the 
direction of inorganic processes by human purpose and intelligence. 
A simile may serve to illustrate both cases. The life processes 
of an organism may be likened to a river ; in both cases a 
stream of energy undergoes successive transformations and is fed 
constantly by minor streams. In the case of the river, flowing 
always to lower levels till it reaches the sea and making heat by 
friction as it goes, every part or detail of the whole stream of 
energy-transformations involves degradation of energy ; nowhere 
is the water raised to a higher level or the energy rendered more 
capable of doing work. But human purpose and intelligence 
may place in the course of the river an arrangement of matter, 
a machine, such that part of the energy of the whole stream is 
raised to a higher level of potential (as in certain pumps, or in 
the case of every watermill). So, in the course of the stream of 
energy-transformations that make up the physical life of any 
organism, part of the energy is raised to higher levels of potential 
in defiance of the law of degradation or entropy. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

INADEQUACY OF MECHANICAL PRINCIPLES TO EXPLAIN 
ORGANIC EVOLUTION 

WE have seen how the rapid acceptance of Darwin's 
doctrine of the evolution of species through the opera- 
tion of natural selection seemed to give Animism its 
death-blow ; how it gave greater confidence to those who sought 
to show that the organic world is wholly subject to the laws of 
mechanism, enabling them to claim not only that organisms are 
machines, but also that these machines have been slowly evolved 
by mechanically, intelligible processes. 

But in this sphere also another half century of active research 
and controversy has shown that these confident anticipations were 
ill-founded. The Neo-Darwinians, under the leadership of Weis- 
mann, have attempted to show that all organic evolution can be 
accounted for by the principle of the natural selection of favour- 
able variations from among a great number of small spontaneous 
variations of indefinite or indeterminate character. Darwin and 
many other biologists (a minority perhaps at the present time) have 
continued to accept the Lamarckian principle of the inheritance of 
characters acquired by use during the life of individuals. Now, 
such characters are in large part teleologically built up or deter- 
mined ; the efforts of the animal (and very possibly of plants 
also ^) to satisfy its instinctive needs, and to avoid the painful, 
and to secure and maintain the pleasurable, influences of its 
environment, result in the formation of habits and in other 
modifications of structure and function ; and these modifications, 
according to the Lamarckians, are in some degree inherited by 
the offspring, or at least, determine in the offspring variations in 
the direction of similar modifications. 

It is obvious that, if such inheritance takes place, it is a 

^ That plants cannot be denied all capacity of effort or teleological striving 
may be maintained with great plausibility. See Mr Francis Darwin's Presi- 
dential Address to the British Association, 1908. 
246 



MECHANISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 247 

cause of determinate variation ; that we must regard these deter- 
minate variations as important factors in organic evolution ; and 
that in this way mind may operate teleologically as a factor 
of evolution to whose importance no limits can be set.^ 

The Neo-Darwinians deny that any such inheritance takes 
place, that any determinate variations are provided in this way for 
the operation of natural selection ; and in denying this they deny 
that mind has played any such part in organic evolution. 

Now, it must be noted that this denial of the Lamarckian prin- 
ciple is effected by way of an argument in a circle. For the principal 
ground for the denial of the inheritance of acquired characters is 
the fact that such inheritance cannot be made to seem even 
remotely compatible with the mechanistic interpretation of life.^ 
But it was shown in the foregoing chapter that the inheritance 
of all the specific characters of an organism is incapable of being 
made to seem mechanically explicable. Therefore, in this respect, 
the acquired characters are no exception ; and we cannot deny 
the transmission of them from parent to offspring on the ground 
that we cannot even in the vaguest way suggest the mechanics 
of the process. The only remaining ground for the denial is the 
fact that, in nearly all cases in which acquired characters seem to 
be inherited, a tortuous ingenuity can suggest possible, though 
often wildly improbable, ways in which they may have been built 
up by selection of indeterminate variations only. 

It remains open to us, then, to believe that acquired char- 
acters are inherited in some degree, and that in this way mind 
has exerted teleological guidance of organic evolution, namely, by 

^ Prof. James Ward has sketched in masterly outHne the part we may assign 
to " Subjective Selection " in organic evolution, if acquired characters are trans- 
mitted ("Naturalism and Agnosticism," vol. i.. Lecture x.). 

2 In a recent work, " Die Mneme," R. Semon has attempted the task which 
I have described above as impossible ; but I, for one, cannot see that, in spite 
of the introduction of several new words, he has achieved any success. 

Prof. Ewald Hering and the late Samuel Butler proposed to regard the 
inheritance of acquired characters as a special case of memory. But neither of 
them has made clear how he conceived memory to be conditioned. If memory 
is conceived as conditioned by the persistence of material collocations (as most 
physiologists conceive it), to describe heredity as a special manifestation of 
memory does nothing to diminish the chief difficulty of accepting the inheritance 
of acquired characters. But if good reasons can be shown for regarding memory 
as conditioned by some immaterial mode of persistence and for holding heredity 
to be a function of the same immaterial principle, then a great step is made to- 
wards rendering the Lamarckian principle acceptable and the processes of 
heredity and evolution in some degree intelligible (see chaps, xxiv. and xxvi.). 



548 BODY AND MIND 

determining trends of variation, which variations natural selection 
has accumulated and fixed as specific characters. 

But, if inheritance of acquired characters should eventually be 
proved to be an untenable hypothesis, we shall still be driven to 
look for other principles of explanation than natural selection 
alone. For it is now generally admitted that natural selection can 
exert but a negative influence, that it is, as it were, but a pruning- 
knife which, by constantly lopping off a bud here, a twig there, 
can mould the branches of the tree of life into a thousand different 
forms, but cannot cause it to grow or put forth new branches ; that 
it can do nothing, in short, unless the tree puts forth of its own 
yitality a multitude of buds and twigs. 

It has long been clear to those whose eyes were not 
obstinately closed to the facts, that natural selection implies the 
struggle for existence, and that, as was pointed out in Chapter 
XVII., this struggle is essentially teleological ; sticks and stones, as 
we said, do not struggle for existence, nor, so far as we can see, 
do atoms, molecules, etherial vortex rings, particles of electricity, or 
whatever may be the ultimate element of matter fashionable just 
now. All inorganic things seem content to remain in whatever 
condition it has pleased God to assign to them. 

It has long been clear also that, if natural selection be given 
nothing to work upon but a multitude of small indeterminate varia- 
tions (i.e. fortuitous variations equally pronounced in all directions), 
the principle meets, as Herbert Spencer showed, immense, if not 
certainly insuperable, difficulties in attempting to explain the evolu- 
tion of many organs and functions; especially such as in their early 
stages cannot be conceived to be of any use to the organism, 
and those which, can only be of use when several other organs are 
simultaneously modified.^ These difficulties are to some extent 

^ The inadequacy of the mechanistic principles of Neo-Darwinism to the 
explanation of organic evolution has lately been urged with great force by Prof. 
Bergson in the following way (" Evolution Creatrice," p. 8i) : — He points to the 
vertebrate eye, an organ composed of a multitude of anatomical elements and 
tissues, all of which are disposed with the greatest precision and harmony to 
subserve the function of vision. That this precise and extremely complex 
arrangement of a vast multitude of parts, many of which are of very highly 
specialised constitution, should have been achieved by the accumulation of 
happy accidents, is, he says, a sufficiently incredible supposition. But an eye of 
closely similar structure has been independently evolved in some species of 
mollusc. The mechanists are therefore driven to suppose that the same long 
series of happy accidents has occurred independently in two branches of the tree 
of life. This supposition, says Bergson, goes beyond the limits of legitimate 



MECHANISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 249 

diminished by the recognition of the principle of Organic Selec- 
tion 1 ; according to this principle, an incipient organ or function, 
still so imperfectly laid down in the inherited constitution as to 
be of little or no value in itself, may by intelligent effort be so, 
developed in each generation afresh as to acquire survival value 
for those members of each generation in which the variation 
occurs ; and in this way, apart from any transmission of acquired 
characters, the purposive efforts of succeeding generations of 
organisms may guide or direct the course of evolution, shielding, 
preserving, and accumulating the variations that make for struc- 
tural changes of the same kind as they themselves produce ; while 
other variations are weeded out, or fail to accumulate, for lack of 
such shielding. 

But, if Neo-Darwinism accepts this principle as an aid to the 
surmounting of its difficulties, it renounces its mechanistic 
tendency ; for the principle is distinctly teleological." 

But other difficulties in the way of Neo-Darwinism, difficulties 
which are not to be overcome by the aid of organic selection, have 
been brought to light in recent years. 

Of these, one is the negative result of long-continued experi- 
ments in artificial selection directed towards the creation of new 
characters by the accumulation of small spontaneous indeterminate 
variations ; that is to say, the failure of attempts to create new 
characters in the way in which Neo-Darwinism holds all evolution 
to have taken place, with this difference only that the blind ex- 
terminations of nature are replaced by the purposive selection of 
man. It has been found in a number of such experiments that 
the modifications of structure and function producible in this way 
seem to be strictly and narrowly limited ; with each generation 
the amount of modification producible is less ; and, as soon as 
strict selection is suspended, the new breed rapidly reverts to 
the specific type.^ 

These difficulties are inclining many biologists to look with 



hypothesis. As another instance of the independent evolution of complex 
functions, Bergson cites the processes of sexual reproduction so strangely similar 
in plants and animals ; and this function is not a necessity, but a luxury. 

1 Profs. Lloyd Morgan and J. M. Baldwin share the credit of having suggested 
this very important principle. 

2 See appendix to this chapter. 

3 Some of the best of these experiments are cited by H. de Vries in " Plant 
Breeding," London, 1907. 



2 so BODY AND MIND 

favour on the view (of which Professors Bateson^ and de Vries^ are 
the principal exponents) that organic evolution has proceeded ia 
the main by discontinuous variation, i.e. by the sudden appearance 
in some individuals of a species of large modifications of structure 
or function which are transmitted in full to their offspring, and 
which, though they will be more likely to be perpetuated if they 
are of such a nature as to advantage the creatures in their struggle 
for existence, may nevertheless persist as specific characters 
independently of, and indeed in spite of, natural selection. It 
has been abundantly proved that such variations really occur, and 
that they sometimes appear in large numbers of individuals of a 
species throughout some generations. It is proposed to use the 
name " mutations " to distinguish variations of this kind from the 
small indefinite or fluctuating variations on which Darwin and 
the Neo-Darwinists have chiefly relied. 

The supposition that mutations have been the principal factor 
in organic evolution certainly diminishes some of the difficulties 
of the theory of evolution, but it removes it further than ever 
from the hope of mechanistic explanation. For these mutations 
cannot be regarded as purely fortuitous variations, or slight 
accidental departures from exact transmission of the parental 
characters, as the fluctuating indeterminate variations fairly may 
be regarded. Nor are they merely monstrosities, resulting from 
defects of the morphogenetic process ; such defects can result 
only in partial absence of structures, as, for example, cleft-palate, 
in changes of colour of parts, in duplication of organs, or in other 
monstrous disproportions or overgrowths of tissues of the nature 
of tumours, naevi, warts. Variations of these kinds could produce 
no new organs, no new specific characters.^ Mutations produce 

^ "Mendel's Principles of Heredity," Cambridge, 1909. 

2 " Mutation," London, 19 10. 

3 It may be said that the results of the experiments in hybridization made by 
the Mendelians diminish the difficulty of imagining mechanistic evolution by 
way of mutation ; for these seem to show that certain characters of animals 
and plants must be regarded as units which are either fully represented in the 
germ or quite unrepresented ; and they give some colour to the view that each 
organism is a bundle of such unit characters or organs, and that the whole germ 
is a bundle of lesser germs, each of which, the representative of one of these unit- 
characters, consists of some atom or molecule, or perhaps side-chain of atoms, 
in a complex molecule. Most, if not all, of the characters hitherto dealt with 
by the Mendelians are of great simpUcity, e.g. coat-colour, shape of wattles or 
comb in birds, presence of sugar or starch in seeds, and so on ; and it may be 
suggested with some plausibihty that each such character has appeared as a 
mutation owing to the addition of some atom or atom group, or to the substitu- 



MECHANISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 251 

functionally perfect organs or modifications of organs ; and, if 
they did not do so, it would be impossible to suppose that they 
have played any considerable part in evolution. They demand, 
therefore, for their explanation some formative directive principle ; 
and evidence of their frequent occurrence in all species, though it 
would make clearer to us the actual course of evolution, would do 
nothing to diminish the difficulties of mechanistic explanation of 
it, but would rather accentuate the difficulty. 

Lastly, attention must be drawn to a feature of the constitu- 
tion of organisms, which, as Driesch has pointed out,^ cannot be 
explained by either the Darwinian or the Lamarckian principle, 
nor by that of organic selection ; this feature is the power of 
restitution of functions and regeneration of organs after injury, 
possessed in some degree by all organisms. The power, for example, 
of regenerating a lost limb can have been acquired neither by 
use-inheritance nor by natural selection, for the simple reason 
that it is a power called into play in but few individuals of each 
generation ; it is a power which, though highly advantageous to 
the few individuals that have occasion to manifest it, is of little 
importance to the species as a whole ; in short, we cannot 
suppose all newts to be descended from ancestors that have lost 
their legs and have been at the same time so fortunate as to have 
varied or mutated in the direction of capacity for complete 
regeneration. 

In this and in the preceding chapter we have touched upon 

tion of one atom group for another, in the molecular constitution of the germ. 
If this view were tenable we should seem to see in imagination the whole course 
of organic evolution as consisting in successive chemical changes of this kind in 
the germ, each producing a new mutation. But though this naive way of regard- 
ing evolution and inheritance raay seem plausible so long as we have regard to 
such simple characters as the colour and shape of organs, such as combs and 
wattles, seed-pods and petals, it must appear to all unbiassed minds hopelessly 
inadequate when apphed to account for complex instincts. If a complex train 
of instinctive action is to be accounted for mechanistically, it must be supposed 
that the movements making up the train of action are connected with the initiat- 
ing and guiding sense-impression by a complex nervous machinery consisting 
of a number of compound reflex-arcs each of very great complexity, and each 
comprising a great number of nerve-cells connected together in complex func- 
tional series, and each connected with the others in perfectly definite manner. 
How, then, can such a complex structure, which is not merely a structure but a 
most complex and dehcately working machine, be effectively represented by (i.e. 
its growth be determined by) some molecule or side-chain of atoms of some 
molecule in the germ ? ^ Op. cit., vol. i. p. 286. 



252 BODY AND MIND 

some of the principal difficulties that beset the attempt to explain 
the processes of the tissues of organisms,and especially the processes 
of growth, restitution, heredity, and evolution, in terms of physics 
and chemistry. These difficulties have appeared more and more 
clearly thoughout the last half century as our knowledge of the 
facts has increased. And so we find that^ though at the beginning 
of this period the dominant note of biological thought was one of 
confident anticipation of the ultimate and indeed rapid sol^iition of 
the major problems of biology in mechanical terms, and though 
in the earlier part of that period Vitalism was commonly spoken 
of as a thing of the past, a mere survival from the dark ages, 
to-day vitalists are again numerous amongst the biologists. The 
modern vitalists are no longer content to " explain " the 
phenomena of organic life by ascribing them to a " vital force." 
The notions they would introduce into biology to supplement or 
replace mechanical conceptions are very diverse, and many of them 
do not go beyond the affirmation of the belief that organic 
processes involve some undefined factor which cannot be described 
in terms of \ physics and chemistry. This belief, which is the 
essence of Vitalism, is in fact the only thing common to the 
" Neo-Vitalists." Owing to this diversity of view amongst 
vitalists, to the purely negative character of their only common 
tenet, and to the fact that many of them are very reserved' in 
regard to it, abstaining from giving it any public expression, and 
owing, on the other hand, to the complete agreement between all the 
mechanists, the definite and positive nature of their doctrine, and 
the confident dogmatic manner in which they continue to affirm it, 
the latter still appear to the world as the dominant party among 
the biologists. But it is doubtful whether, if a census could be 
taken at the present time, they would prove to be more numerous 
than the vitalists.^ 

It is worthy of note, in this connexion, that the exclusive 
sway in the organic world of the principles of physical science is 
maintained in a more confident and dogmatic manner by the 
mechanistic biologists than by many of the leading physicists who 
have enunciated these principles and taught them to the biologists. 

1 Dr Merz, after displaying the gains that modern biology owes to the use of 
mechanical conceptions, remarks — " And yet it may be asked, have we come 
nearer an answer to the question, What is Life ? At one time, for a generation 
which is passing away, we apparently had. But a closer scrutiny has convinced 
most of us that we have not. . . . The spectre of a vital principle still lurks 
behind all our terms." Op. cit., p. 462. 



MECHANISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 253 

It is perhaps worth while to enumerate here a few of these 
physicists of the highest standing who, since the establishment of 
the law of conservation of energy, have expressed or implied the 
opinion that physical science does not compel us to believe that 
the evolution and life-processes of organisms are capable of being 
completely described in mechanical terms ; such are or were Sir 
G. Stokes,! Lord Kelvin,^ Maxwell,^ P. G. Tait,* Balfour Stewart,* 
Sir W. Crookes, Sir O. Lodge,^ Sir J. J. Thomson, Sir J. Larmor,^ 
Prof. Poynting.'^ 

Finally, it is necessary to insist very strongly that, in this 
dispute between the mechanistic and the vitalistic biologists, the 
onus of proof lies with the former, and not with the vitalists, as is 
comrnonly assumed by their opponents. For it is undeniable 
that on the face of things living beings differ very greatly from all 
inorganic things, and that their processes seem to be teleologically 
governed rather than mechanically caused ; and as we have seen, 
the increase of knowledge brought by the research of the last 
half-century has done nothing to show that this appearance 
is illusory, but rather has revealed the same appearance of 
teleological determination in a multitude of organic processes 
which formerly were regarded with some plausibility as purely 
mechanical. It may, therefore, be said to-day with even more con- 
fidence and force than in the time of Democritus or of Lucretius, 
of Hobbes or of Huxley, that the mechanical view of the organic 
world remains nothing more than a hope, a faith, a postulate, or a 
prejudice in the minds of those who hold it. 

1 Presidential Address to British Association, Exeter. 
^ " On the Dissipation of Energy," Popular Lectures, II. 

3 " Life of Clerk Maxwell," by Campbell and Garnett, chap. xiv. ; and in many 
other passages. 

* " The Unseen Universe." 

5 " Life and Matter." In this work Sir Oliver Lodge has argued strongly in 
favour of the view that life involves guidance of the mechanical processes of the 
bodies of organisms, and that such guidance need involve no breach of the law of 
conservation of energy or the other generally accepted principles of physical 
science. 

6 " Aether and Matter," p. 288. 
' Hibbert Journal, vol. ii. 



254 BODY AND MIND 

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XVIII 

"ORGANIC SELECTION" 

The principle of " Organic Selection " seems to me very important. It 
has been heard of, appreciated, or approved by relatively few biologists, and 
experience has taught me that it is very difficult to bring some biologists to 
understand it. I therefore add the following appendix to this chapter : — 

We may take as an example for the illustration of the principle of 
organic selection the instinct to He perfectly still when suddenly con- 
fronted by an enemy, an instinct which seems to have been acquired by 
several species of animals of widely different groups. It seems obvious 
that this instinct cannot have been acquired by the accumulation of 
small variations ; for, if this instinctive behaviour is to advantage the 
creature, it must be perfect from the first ; any restriction of the move- 
ments of escape short of complete motionlessness would be worse than 
useless. But if we suppose that individuals of a species had sufficient 
intelligence to avoid attracting the attention of their enemies 
or their prey (and numerous stories imply that foxes at least 
display such intelligence) by remaining still in spite of their natural 
tendency to run away (or to dash upon their prey), then we may suppose 
that, if some individuals varied in the direction of lying still for a moment 
whenever startled, they would carry out their intelligent suppression of 
movement (especially in early life) more effectively than others in whom 
no such fortuitous variation occurred. Spontaneous variation and intelli- 
gence thus working together would secure survival more effectively than 
either working alone. Thus intelligence might shield or foster the 
accumulation of variations in this direction, until the instinct was perfected 
and intelhgence was no longer needed to supplement the imperfect instinct. 
This is a very simple and perhaps not very probable example, but it may 
serve to illustrate the principle. 

Few biologists seem to have grasped this principle, and fewer still 
the range of its application and the very great part it may have played in 
promoting and guiding teleologically the course of organic evolution. 
Yet, rightly considered, the principle is an essential part of the Darwinian 
theory ; and since, if it is valid, it shows us how organic evolution may have 
been teleologically guided and promoted by mind, by psychical effort and 
subjective selection, to an extent to which we can set no limits, even 
though acquired characters be not inherited ; and since it seems to have 
been impossible hitherto to find conclusive evidence of the inheritance 
of acquired characters, it seems worth while to dwell on it a little in the 
present connexion, and to attempt to show that the operation of this 
teleological principle is necessarily assumed by the theory of the origin of 
species by natural selection. 

Let us try to imagine the operation of organic selection in the evolu- 
tion of the prehensile paw of the monkey tribe from the forelimb of an 



MECHANISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 255 

ancestor that lived on the ground only. It seems clear that the prehensile 
paw must have been developed as a consequence of the animals taking 
to climbing trees and finding the habit advantageous. This habit was 
acquired, we must suppose, by some group of the ancestral species which 
was brought into a region in which arboreal habits were advantageous and 
attractive ; perhaps because it abounded in trees bearing fruit that was 
pleasant to the taste of the species and well suited for its nourishment. 
At first, members of the species climbed awkwardly upon the trees to 
reach the fruit, their limbs being but little suited to the task ; just as 
creatures so little adapted for tree-climbing as crabs are known to 
have taken to this practice in pursuit of fruit. The practice of tree- 
climbing constantly pursued from earliest youth would to some extent 
increase the facility of each animal in the execution of the necessary 
movements and would at the same time produce in each generation some 
degree of adaptation of the limbs to the task. But, if acquired characters 
are not inherited, these effects of practice would not be transmitted and 
intensified from generation to generation. Nevertheless, according to the 
fundamental assumption of Darwinism, the limbs of these creatures were 
varying constantly in all possible directions ; i.e. in some individuals of 
each generation, variations of the limbs in the direction of better adapta- 
tion to climbing would fortuitously appear, in others, variations of different 
kinds which would either be adverse to climbing or indifferent from that 
point of view ; in this respect then the individuals of each generation would 
fall into three classes, namely, (i) those varying in the direction of better 
adaptation to climbing; (2) those varying adversely; (3) those whose 
limbs remain unvaried from the point of view of tree-climbing. If, then, 
the struggle for life, in the form of competition for the food supply, the 
fruit of the trees, is severe, all individuals of the second class would be 
severely handicapped, and would suffer a higher rate of mortality ; hence 
such variations are weeded out of the group ; and of individuals of the 
first class a larger percentage will survive and reproduce themselves and 
their peculiarities than among those of the third class. In this way the 
whole group would achieve, generation by generation, limbs innately better 
adapted for climbing. But the point on which I wish to insist is that, in 
this progressive adaptation of the limbs by "natural selection " of fortuitous 
variations, teleological guidance by psychical effort and subjective selection 
plays an essential part without which no such evolution would have taken 
place. The desire of the creatures to obtain the fruit, or at least the impulse 
to go in search of it, leading to effort after climbing the trees on which it 
grows, determines that, of all variations of the limbs, those tending to better 
adaptation to climbing should alone be perpetuated and accumulated.^ 
This truth of fundamental importance, yet so generally overlooked, 

^ This hypothetical case makes it obvious that the principle of organic 
selection is closely allied to Prof. Ward's " subjective selection," as Prof. Ward 
has himself pointed out (" Naturahsm and Agnosticism," i., p. 294). But in 
applying his principle Ward assumed the validity of the Lamarckian principle, 
and combined the two principles. 



256 BODY AND MIND 

may be made clearer by imagining a different course of events. Suppose 
another group of the ancestral species to be brought into a similar region 
in which they find an abundance of a certain edible and nutritious root (say 
the yam) which is more to their taste than the fruit growing on the trees ; 
their efforts will then be chiefly directed to finding and digging out this 
root, to the neglect of the fruit of the trees. The habit of digging out 
the .root becomes established as a custom which is learnt imitatively by 
each generation, while, although by painful efforts the fruit might be 
reached, no habit and no custom of seeking it is established.^ If, when 
this customary reliance upon the root as food supply has been established, 
times of scarcity come, or, in other words, if the " population " begins to 
press upon the means of subsistence, those individuals whose limbs are 
best adapted for discovering the roots by digging will have the best chance 
of survival. Hence variations of the limbs in this direction will be per- 
petuated and accumulated, while variations in opposite directions will be 
weeded out. We may then legitimately suppose that in this case the 
forelimbs of this group, constituting a divergent species, may become 
short and spade-like, like those of the mole ; while those of the other 
group become elongated and prehensile. 

We may imagine a third case in which a group of the ancestral species 
finds itself in a region in which the food supply most attractive to it is 
the fish of clear ponds or rivers, and that it secures these by swimming 
and diving after them. In this case again individual practice will lead in 
each generation to increased skill in and increased adaptation of the 
limbs to swimming and diving ; and again, in the absence of all trans- 
mission of acquired characters, the choice and purposive efforts of 
the creatures in this direction will determine that, of the fortuitous varia- 
tions of all possible directions, those only will be perpetuated and 
accumulated which are in the direction of better adaptation to swimming 
and diving. Thus from the one parental species we may suppose that in 
three different, but closely similar geographical areas, three new species 
are gradually differentiated, one arboreal in habit and with prehensile 
forelimbs, one seeking its food by digging with spade-like forelimbs, a 
third aquatic in habit with fin-like forelimbs; and in each case habit, 
arising from choice and purposive effort, will have determined the differ- 
ences of bodily structure and also, it may be added, the differences 
of instinct which accompany the structural differences. In each case 
the psychical choice and effort plays an essential role, determining, 
guiding, or moulding the course of evolution. For suppose the ancestral 
species to have been one that fed on herbage only, and that it had too little 
intelligence and spontaneity to make experiments in feeding, when any 
one of the three more nutritious and abundant kinds of food were within 
its reach, or too conservative in taste to have appreciated these dietetic 
novelties : then the species would have continued unchanged in all the 
three environments we have imagined. 

^ That habits determine customs among gregarious animals, and are thus 
transmitted by imitation from generation to generation, is, I think, indisputable. 



MECHANISM AND ORGANIC EVOLUTION 257 

There seem to be hardly any bodily characters of any species the 
evolution of which may not be supposed to have been in this way deter- 
mined teleologically, by psychical choice and effort, in absence of all 
transmission of acquired characters. Coat colour and marking, for 
example, seem to be incapable of being directly affected by the choice or 
any mental effort of the animal (with certain exceptions in which chromato- 
phoric changes are controlled by the nervous system). Yet a protective 
colouring and marking, as, e.g., those of the leopard's skin, must be deter- 
mined by the animals' choice of their environments and the way in which 
they apply whatever "little dose of judgment and reason " they may have 
to forward their success in life. If, for example, the lion and the leopard 
have diverged from a common stock, and if, as seems hardly deniable, 
their coat colours are adaptations to their environments which enable them 
to secure their prey more readily by rendering them inconspicuous, this 
divergence can only have been effected by natural selection in so far as 
the divergent stocks actively sought the kinds of prey that inhabit the 
two very different physical environments of the forest and the desert. It 
may be said that two groups of the ancestral stock may have been forced 
into geographical regions in which no choice was left them — the ancestral 
stock of the lion into the desert, that of the leopard into a forest region 
in which arboreal habits became necessary to survival. This seems 
improbable ; but even if the supposition be admitted, it remains true that 
the change of habits necessitated by the new environment was in each case 
possible only in virtue of a certain degree of intelligent adaptation and 
effort on the part of successive generations ; which is thus in this case 
also a presupposition of the operation of natural selection to produce 
divergence of species. If the animals had been incapable of such 
intelligent adaptation of their behaviour, they would have died out rapidly 
in the new environments. 

In short, the doctrine of organic selection is but the working out in 
more detail of the fundamental presupposition of Darwinism, namely, the 
struggle for existence, which, as was said above, is essentially a psychical 
struggle in that it presupposes " the will to live." 



17 



CHAPTER XIX 

INADEQUACY OF MECHANICAL CONCEPTIONS TO 
EXPLAIN ANIMAL AND HUMAN BEHAVIOUR 

WE have seen that modern physiology regards all nervous 
process as of the reflex type (i.e. as similar to the reflex 
- processes of the spinal cord by which co-ordinated and 
outwardly purposive movements are made in response to par- 
ticular sense-stimuli) ; and that this doctrine, in conjunction with 
the " association-psychology," has played a considerable part in 
bringing about the rejection of Animism by biologists. It is 
necessary to examine this doctrine more closely and to inquire 
whether the conception of compound reflexes of purely mechanical 
nature (as elaborated especially by Herbert Spencer) is adequate 
to the explanation of the behaviour of men and animals. 

We touch here upon the psychological problems of biology ; 
but the facts of consciousness may with advantage be left for 
consideration in a later chapter, while here we consider behaviour 
from an objective standpoint. 

If we consider the behaviour of animals of all levels of 
complexity of organization, we find that it is everywhere 
characterized by certain features that seem to present insuperable 
difficulties to all attempts at purely mechanical explanation. This 
is true even of the behaviour of the simplest of all animals, the 
unicellular protozoa. The mechanists have attempted to exhibit 
all the movements of these minute organisms as the direct results 
of the incidence of physical stimuli upon their substance ; e.g. the 
protrusion of a pseudopodium by Amoeba as the effect of a local 
diminution of surface tension by contact with some chemical or 
physical agent ; the turning of flagellate or ciliate protozoa (such 
as P arainoecium) towards or away from light, or the electric 
current, or a bubble of carbonic acid, and their consequent congre- 
gation in the greatest possible proximity to or remoteness from 
such agents, as due to direct stimulation of the organs of loco- 
motion by these agents. Movements thus directly stimulated 

258 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 259 

and directed are called tropisms ; and the mechanists attempt to 
show that the behaviour of these lower organisms is nothing but 
a series of such tropisms, direct local reactions to physical and 
chemical stimuli.^ 

But, when the movements of these unicellular and very simple 
multicellular creatures are minutely and impartially studied, it 
appears that, although some of their movements may be plausibly 
regarded as tropisms, others present features that make it im- 
possible to regard them in this light. Thus, the progression of 
Amceba, which has been mechanically interpreted as due merely 
to diminution of surface tension, has been shown by the minute 
studies of Mr H. S. Jennings ^ to involve streaming movements 
of the protoplasm which are incompatible with that or any other 
of the suggested mechanical explanations. The same observer 
has shown also that the behaviour of free-swimming infusoria 
cannot be regarded as merely a series of tropisms ; the animal 
responds to most of the stimuli that affect it, not merely with 
some local change of activity in the part on which the stimulus 
falls, but with a co-ordinated change of activity of all its organs 
of locomotion ; that is, the animal behaves as an organic unity, 
or, as Jennings puts it, it responds to local stimulation with a 
" total reaction." For example, Parainceciuni (the slipper animal- 
cule which swims freely in water by means of the whipping 
movements of the hair-like threads or cilia that cover all its 
surface), on colliding as it swims with a hard body, suddenly 
reverses the movement of all its cilia and backs off; and the 
nature of the turning movement is independent of the point of 
incidence of the stimulus. So also Amceba, chasing or being 
chased, may be observed suddenly to reverse the direction of its 
movement and to set off in a new direction better calculated to 
secure its end, namely, capture or escape, and to repeat this 
again and again ; ^ its behaviour consists in a series of " total 
reactions " each well adapted to secure the biological end. Or 
again, Amceba sometimes becomes detached from the solid 
surfaces on which it normally crawls ; it then sends out long 

^ See the works of Prof. J. Loeb, especially " Die Bedeutung der Tropismen " 
Leipsic, 1909, and M. G. Bohn's, " Naissance de 1' Intelligence." Paris, 1909. 

2 " The Behaviour of the Lower Organisms." 

3 See especially Jennings' fascinating account of the pursuit of one Amceba 
by a larger specimen {op. cit.). In this case the meeting of two organisms 
of similar constitution resulted in the persistent flight of the smaller and the 
persistent pursuit of it by the larger. 



26o BODY AND MIND 

slender pseudopodia in all directions, until one of them comes in 
contact with, and adheres to, a solid body ; the other pseudopodia 
are then quickly withdrawn and the whole substance flows towards 
the point of attachment. 

Observations reported by the same careful worker bring out 
very clearly also in the behaviour of these very lowly animals, 
a second very important characteristic, namely, they exhibit 
persistent striving towards the biological end of their activity 
with variation of the means employed ; i.e. the animal, when 
obstructed or checked in the pursuit of an end, neither ceases at 
once to strive (to continue its movements), nor persists in the 
same movement or attempt at movement, but rather varies the 
nature or direction of its movements again and again, until it hits 
upon a kind or a direction of movement that meets with no 
obstruction. In other words, it seems to work towards the 
biological end by the method of persistent " trial and error," 
Such behaviour is so commonly exhibited by these lowly 
creatures that Jennings asserts — ■" In no other group of organisms 
does the method of trial and error so completely dominate 
behaviour, perhaps, as in the infusoria." ^ 

Now, this persistence of movement with variation in detail of 
the kind and direction of movement, while the physical environment 
remains unchanged, is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the 
behaviour of organisms ; it is one to which no parallel can be 
found in the inorganic world. The falling stone stops dead when 
it strikes the earth, the clock-work stops without a struggle if 
you thrust a spoke into its wheel ; the locomotive engine, brought 
up against a dead wall, continues at most to exert unavailing 
pressure in the same direction ; and the same is true of every 
merely mechanical contrivance ; none exhibits that most rudi- 
mentary form of self-direction which consists in spontaneously 
changing the direction or nature of movement. 

Thus we see that, at the very bottom of the evolutionary 
scale, animal behaviour exhibits the two peculiarities which at all 
higher levels also distinguish it from the movements of inorganic 
things, namely, (i) the " total" or unitary nature of reaction, i.e. 
the reaction of the organism as a whole with co-ordination of the 
movements of its parts in response to a stimulus directly affecting 
one small part only ; and (2) the persistence of the effect of the 
stimulus, a persistence closely analogous to that persistence of 

1 Op. cit., p. 243. 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 261 

varied movement which in ourselves and our fellows we recognize 
as the expression of a persistent effort after a desired end. And 
to this it must be added that these persistent and varied and 
total or unitary reactions of the whole organism are in the main 
adaptive, i.e. of such a nature as to promotethe welfare of the creature. 

The mechanist, of course, will argue that, if only we had 
intimate knowledge of the physics and chemistry of the Amoeba 
or the infusorian, we could mechanically explain these peculiarities 
in every case. But this is merely to repeat his fundamental 
assumption, which, until he shall have justified it in some one 
single case, must remain nothing more than the expression of an 
ill-founded hope. 

If we turn now to the middle level of the animal scale, we 
iind behaviour characterized by the same fundamental peculiarities ; 
and we find a further difficulty in the way of all purely mechanical 
explanation. Let us consider the case of a purely instinctive 
action, an adaptive action which is performed perfectly when the 
animal finds itself for the first time in a particular situation, say 
in the presence of an object of a particular kind. Such typical 
and purely instinctive actions have been widely and confidently 
classed as compound reflexes of purely mechanical type. It is 
assumed that every sensory point of the animal's surface is 
connected by some continuous nervous path with some muscle or 
group of muscles, and that, when any group of such sensory points 
are stimulated simultaneously, a movement is produced which is 
the resultant of all these simultaneously excited reflex tendencies. 
Some instinctive actions are evoked by simple or relatively simple 
sense-impressions, such as odours, simple sounds, simple impressions 
of touch or temperature ; these differ outwardly from reflex actions 
only in the greater complexity of the bodily movements evoked ; 
and they form a scale of transition from the reflex actions to the 
higher or more complex forms of instinctive activity. The higher 
or more complex instinctive activities are evoked not by simple 
sense-impressions, but only by the complex groups or conjunctions 
of sense-stimuli that are received from objects of particular kinds. 
Every instinctive act that depends for its initiation on the recep- 
tion by the eye of an image of some object is of this kind ; and 
that many purely instinctive actions are thus initiated is, I think, 
indisputable.^ 

^ Since some authors (notably Driesch) hold the view that all instinctive 
actions are evoked by simple sensory stimuli, it is necessary to point to unmis- 



262 BODY AND MIND 

Let us consider the case of an insect which emerges from the 
chrysahs fully equipped with all its organs and powers, and which, 
when it comes within sight of a flower of a particular species, 
flies to it and by means of a series of delicately adjusted move- 
ments deposits its eggs in just that part of the flower in which 
alone they can develop.-*- 

Such behaviour is other than and more than a series of com- 
pound reflexes ; the flower is of complex shape and its parts 
affect the sense-organs of the insect with a highly complex group 
of stimuli ; i.e. the total sense-impression may be analysed by us 
into a complex of physical stimuli each affecting the sensory 
terminus of a sensory nerve. And the behaviour of the insect 
in response to the impression is a series of acts each of which 
also may be analysed by us and exhibited as the contractions of a 
number of muscles. Now, if it could be shown that of this 
complex of muscular contractions each one corresponds to and is 
directly evoked by one element of the complex of sensory stimuli 
by way of a reflex nervous arc, we should have a mechanical 
explanation of the action. But each step of the behaviour of the 
insect is more than such a complex of reflexes ; it is a total 
complex reaction to a total complex sense-impression, and there 
is no point-to-point correspondence between the elements into 
which we analyse the reaction and those into which we analyse 
the impression. The total reaction, although complex, is unitary. 



takable instances of instinctive actions evoked only by complex conjunctions of 
stimuli. As examples of such I -would cite the behaviour of the various species of 
solitary -wasps in presence of their prey, as described so admirably by M. Fabre 
("Souvenirs entomologiques ") and Dr and Mrs Peckham ("Wasps, Social and 
Solitary "). The -wasps of each species prey only on animals of some one 
kind, one species on caterpillars, another on spiders, a third on grasshoppers, 
and so on. It might be suggested that the -wasp is led to his proper prey by 
a simple specific stimulus, namely by scent ; but that can hardly be maintained 
in vie-w of the facts, (i) that a -wasp will capture caterpillars, or spiders, or grass- 
hoppers, etc., of many different species ; (2) that vision plays a great part in 
the direction of their behaviour. Further, even if it were possible to hold that 
the wasp recognizes or is led to its prey by scent, it would be impossible to regard 
its manipulations of its prey (in modes which are distinct, specific, and instinctive 
in each species) as guided only by simple stimuh. Rather the wasp's behaviour 
in capturing its prey depends upon its appreciation of its general shape and size 
and position. Instances such as that of the Yucca moth are equally decisive » 
it is impossible that an insect should execute dehcate operations upon the parts 
of a flower, while guided only by simple stimuli. 

^ A beautiful example is afforded by the Yucca moth. Its behaviour is 
described by Lloyd Morgan in " Animal Behaviour." 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 263 

while the sense-impression is a manifold of stimuli affecting 
a manifold of sensory nerves. Somehow the manifold of discrete 
impressions (say, of light-rays each affecting one of many of the 
facets and end-organs that make up the compound eye of the 
insect) has been combined or synthesized to produce a complex 
unitary effect, of which each element is an organic and essential 
part of the whole, and depends not upon any one of the elements 
of the complex impression, but upon all of them. 

It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine in however general 
and vague a manner a mechanical explanation of this synthetic 
process. 

If now we go on to consider the behaviour of the higher 
insects, in which the innately prescribed modes of reaction become 
complicated by the results of individual experience, we find it 
characterized by this same peculiarity, but in a much higher 
degree, one which renders the difficulty of mechanical explanation 
correspondingly greater. 

A solitary wasp, after digging a hole in the ground ^ to serve 
as a nest for her eggs, sets out in search of prey to be stored in 
the nest as food for her grubs ; having found a caterpillar at any 
point within a radius of some hundreds of feet of her nest, she 
drags it over the rough ground and between the many obstacles 
that obscure for her all vision of the nest or its immediate 
surroundings ; in spite of these obstacles she takes approximately 
and on the whole the shortest possible course to her nest, and 
arrives there with her prey in virtue of a long-sustained series of 
varied movements all directed towards the one end, every deviation 
from the direct path necessitated by obstacles being rectified as 
soon as possible. 

At every step of this prolonged journey the wasp is guided 
by visual impressions of the surroundings, which by many ex- 
plorations she has made familiar to herself. How totally different 
from a series of reflexes are the movem.ents by which she main- 
tains and regains her true direction ! A mere familiarity with, 
or power of recognizing, a certain number, even a very large 
number, of the objects that she encounters would by no means 
suffice to account for her behaviour. In order to guide herself 
she must not merely recognize objects previously seen ; she 
must recognize objects (or the parts of the landscape immedi- 

^ See the admirable descriptions of Dr and Mrs Peckham in their " Wasps, 
Social and Solitary," 1905. 



264 BODY AND MIND 

ately presented to her vision) as related in some determinate 
manner to the whole field of her explorations, and especially 
to that point of it at which her nest is situated ; that is 
to say, each visual perception that guides her course not only 
involves (as in the case of the purely instinctive behaviour of the 
Yucca moth considered above) a synthesis of a large number of 
details of the field of view to a unitary whole (or a synthesis of 
the effects of a manifold of sense-stimuli), but also must be 
related in a determinate fashion to a larger whole, namely, the 
scheme of the whole region which in some sense and manner 
she carries with her. Nor is this all. Her reactions to the 
complex visual impressions by which her course is maintained 
are determined afso by the nature of the task in hand at the 
moment ; for her reactions to each part of the landscape are 
different according as she is looking for a spot suitable for her 
nest, is seeking her prey, or is carrying it back to her nest ; in 
psychological terms, each part of the landscape has for her a 
meaning or significance which is dependent upon her dominant 
purpose at the moment she perceives it ; and this meaning is a 
decisive factor in determining the nature of her reaction. 

Even, then, if it could be admitted that the synthesis involved 
in the successive perceptions may be plausibly supposed to be 
capable of being described in chemico-physical terms as neural 
events, there would remain two greater difficulties: (i) that of 
conceiving in similar terms that essential factor in the whole 
process which we can only describe as the meaning or significance 
of that which is perceived in relation to the purpose or end of the 
whole train of activity ; (2) that of similarly conceiving the most 
fundamental factor, the purpose, the conation, or will, which sus- 
tains the prolonged course of varied efforts and which determines 
the nature of the reaction to each complex sense-impression 
at each step of the process. 

The higher animals, and human beings also, exhibit instinctive 
reactions in response to impressions that are still more remote 
from the simple sense-impression ; these are in a still higher 
degree irreconcilable with the notion of compound reflex action of 
a mechanical type. 

A clear and relatively simple instance is the instinctive cry of 
distress uttered by the human infant, together with the various 
bodily activities that normally accompany it to make up the 
specific expression of distress. This complex instinctive reaction 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 265 

may be evoked by violent stimulation of any sensory nerve ; and 
this fact is not easily reconciled with any mechanical conception 
of instinctive process. For the many sensory nerve-paths do not, 
so far as is known, come together in the special motor centre that 
sends out the system of efferent nervous impulses proper to the 
expressions of distress. Yet somehow this centre may be brought 
into action through violent stimulation of any afferent nerve, with 
few exceptions. Two possibilities of mechanical explanation 
suggest themselves. One is that violent stimulation of any sensory 
nerve liberates in the corresponding sensory tract or centre more 
energy than can be led off along the normal efferent channels 
of the tract ; that the excess of energy therefore overflows the 
normal channels ; and that the centre for the expression of 
distress is connected with all other sensory centres in such a 
way as to receive and to be stimulated by this escaped excess of 
energy. 

A second possibility appears if we accept a notion recently 
introduced by Dr Henry Head, namely, that of " specific intra- 
medullary receptors," i.e. afferent tracts attuned or so constituted 
as to take up and transmit only special modes of nervous excita- 
tion. We might suppose that violent stimulation of any afferent 
nerve sets up in addition to, or instead of, the excitation of the 
kind that is caused by more gentle stimulation, a peculiar form of 
excitation which is common to all nerves under the condition of 
excessive stimulation ; that this is taken up by specific receptors 
(which are so arranged as to tap every afferent path) and from 
them is led by special paths to the " distress-centre." 

Though there are special difficulties and objections in the way 
of both these suggestions, they seem plausible, or at any rate not 
impossible, so long as we consider only the expressions of distress 
that are caused by violent stimulation of sensory nerves. But the 
same expressions, the distressful cry, etc., result from other condi- 
tions, e.g. from hunger, from sensory impressions that are disagree- 
able without being violent, such as those made by bitter substances, 
from all the many situations that excite fear independently of 
previous experience (e.g. darkness, solitude, certain noises, the un- 
familiar, the sight or contact with certain animals, etc.) and from all 
disappointment of expectation, all frustration of active tendencies, in 
short, from all the very various occasions of displeasure or disagree- 
able feeling. There can be no doubt that all these many different 
occasions of the excitement of the one instinctive response involve 



266 BODY AND MIND 

a great variety of nervous processes taking place in a great many- 
different systems of nervous elements ; and in face of this diversity 
of both type and anatomical seat of these processes, both the 
hypotheses suggested above seem to break down ; the only 
factor common to all the occasions, the only invariable ante- 
cedent of the expression of distress, seems to be disagreeable 
feeling. 

It may be pointed out that a similar problem is presented in 
a simpler form by some of the reflex actions of which such an 
animal as the dog remains capable when deprived of the whole 
of its brain, notably by the scratch-reflex so brilliantly studied 
by Prof C. S. Sherrington.^ In this instance the stimulus of a 
particular kind applied to any spot of a considerable area of the 
skin evokes always a particular sequence of co-ordinated move- 
ments of the hind limb, these movements being modified a little 
with each change of place of the stimulus. It might be argued 
that, since it is commonly assumed that spinal reflexes are purely 
mechanical processes, the analogy between the conditions of 
evocation of the scratch-reflex in the dog and those of the expres- 
sion of distress in the infant, justify the belief that the latter is 
mechanically explicable. But no adequate mechanical explana- 
tion of the scratch-reflex has been suggested ; and it may be 
argued with at least equal plausibility that the analogy between 
the processes shows that the scratch-reflex, like the instinctive 
expression of distress, involves some factor incapable of description 
in mechanical terms. 

The same difficulty may be illustrated by reference to the 
instinct of curiosity as displayed by many of the higher animals 
and by ourselves ; and here it appears even more formidable than 
in the previous instance. For this instinct is excited not by any 
simple sense-impressions, nor yet by any specific complex of 
sense-impressions ; for there is no one class of objects to which it 
is especially directed or in the presence of which it is invariably 
displayed. The instinct seems to be brought into play in the 
animals by any object that resembles some object with which they 
are habitually interested or concerned and yet differs from it in 
such a degree that, while it attracts their attention, it fails to 
excite the ordinary response. And in ourselves the conditions 
of excitement of this instinct are not essentially different ; it is 

1 " The Integrative Action of the Nervous System " and a long series of papers 
in Proc. Roy. Soc. 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 267 

evoked by the contemplation of any object which, while sufficiently 
similar to familiar objects to enable the mind to play upon it, yet 
differs from them sufficiently to prevent our attaching the usual 
meaning to the complex sense-impression received from it. In 
short, the condition of excitement of the impulse of curiosity seems 
to be in all cases the presence of a strange or unfamiliar element 
in whatever is partially familiar, whether the object be one of 
sense-perception (as exclusively in the animals and very young 
children), or one contemplated in thought only. In either case 
that element of strangeness, which is the sole invariable antecedent 
of the awakening of the impulse of curiosity, is something that 
exists only for the organism and is discovered by it only by means 
of an intellectual operation of however rudimentary a kind. The 
strangeness of the object of curiosity, to which it owes its power 
of exciting the impulse, exists only in the mind of the organism, 
and is, in fact, the inemting of the object for the organism in so 
far as curiosity is awakened. 

These considerations seem to establish the view that the 
instinctive actions which constitute the expression of curiosity 
cannot be regarded as reflexly excited processes ; and they will, I 
hope, have made clear to the reader that it is impossible in the 
light of our present knowledge to suggest any, even the vaguest, 
mechanical description of the way in which this reaction is excited. 

If we turn now from behaviour of these relatively simple types 
to that of developed human beings, we find similar difficulties 
in the way of all mechanical explanation ; but they are raised to 
a still higher power. 

It is usual, among those who wish to show the impossibility of 
mechanical interpretation of human behaviour, to seek to reduce 
the assumption to absurdity by pointing to particular instances of 
its application ; to insist, for example, that, if the assumption is 
accepted, we have to regard the order of sequence of all the 
letters that make up the text of the Bible, or of a play of 
Shakespeare, or of any other work of literary genius, as being in 
principle capable of a purely mechanical explanation, one which 
makes no reference to the meaning of the words or sentences ; 
or that all the movements by which the artist produces a beauti- 
ful painting or sculpture are mechanically determined, and that 
the appreciation of the beautiful plays no part in the control of 
them. And this should perhaps be a sufficient rediictio ad 
absurdum of the principle. But the argument seems more capable 



268 BODY AND MIND 

of enforcing conviction if presented in a more special and detailed 
fashion. Let us consider the following case. A man receives from 
a friend a telegram saying—" Your son is dead." The physical 
agent to which the man reacts is a series of black marks on a 
piece of paper. The reaction outwardly considered as a series of 
bodily processes consists, perhaps, in a sudden, total, and final 
cessation of all those activities that constitute the outward signs 
of life ; or in complete change of the whole course of the man's 
behaviour throughout the rest of his life. And all this altered 
course of life, beginning perhaps with a series of activities that is 
completely novel and unprecedented in the course of his life, bears 
no direct relation whatever to the nature of the physical stimulus. 
The independence of the reaction on the nature of the physical 
impression is well brought out by the reflexion that the omission 
of a single letter, namely, the first of the series (converting the 
statement into— "Our son is dead "), would have determined none 
of this long train of bodily effects, but merely the writing of a 
letter of condolence or the utterance of a conventional expression 
of regret ; whereas, if the telegram had been written in any one 
of a dozen foreign languages known to the recipient, or if the 
same meaning had been conveyed to him by means of a series of 
auditory impressions or by any one of many different possible 
means of communication, the resulting behaviour would have been 
the same in all cases, in spite of the great differences between the 
series of sense-impressions. 

The one thing common, then, to all the widely different physical 
impressions that produce the same physical effects, i.e. the same 
train of behaviour, is that they evoke the same meaning in the 
consciousness of the subject ; hence this meaning is the essential 
link in each case between the series of physical impressions and 
the series of physical effects.^ 

. ^ This argument has been presented independently and in rather different 
forms by L. Busse (" Leib und Seele") and by Dr H. Driesch ("Philosophy 
and Science of the Organism," vol. ii.). As presented by Busse it is some- 
times called the " telegram-argument." Driesch offers it as his third proof 
of Vitalism ; he sums it up as follows : " In acting then, there may be no change 
in the specificity of the reaction when the stimulus is altered fundamentally, 
and again, there may be the most fundamental difference in the reaction when 
there is almost no change in the stimulus" (p. 70). He proposes to denote 
the principle of the specific correspondence between complex reaction and com- 
plex stimulus as the principle of individuality of correspondence between stimulus 
and effect. He further illustrates it by reference to the fact that any familiar 
object, such as my dog, may be seen in many positions and from many angles 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 269 

It will be seen that this instance of human reaction presents 
just the same difficulty to all attempts at mechanical explanation 
as the instances of animal behaviour previously considered ; but 
in a still higher degree. And human behaviour affords instances 
of the same difficulty raised to a yet higher power. We may 
imagine the following variant of our last example ; instead of 
receiving a telegram saying, " Your son is dead," the man reads 
in the newspaper the statement that a certain ship has foundered, 
carrying to the bottom all its human freight. He has reason to 
fear that his son was a passenger on this ship. He ascertains 
facts which enable him to reach by a chain of reasoning the 
certainty that this was the case and that his son is dead. Here 
again a number of highly complex physical impressions of the 
most diverse kinds received at various times and places evoke, at 
the moment of conclusion of the reasoning process, the same 
reaction as the simple written sentence of the telegram ; all these 
impressions have been synthesized in a higher unity which is- the 
meaning of the words of the telegram and is the essential condi- 
tion of the specific reaction or train of reactions. And this 
instance is typical of all the specifically human modes of reaction. 
The reaction is neither a sum nor a resultant of the elementary 
reactions proper to any or all of the sense-impressions received ; 
it is a total reaction of the whole organism upon some part only 
of the whole field of sense-impressions, and it bears no specific 
relation to these, but only to the meaning which is suggested by 
them, or, rather, is extracted from them, by an intellectual activity 
excited by them. 

That other great characteristic of behaviour, namely, persistency 
of effort with variation of means, is also exhibited by human 
beings in a degree far surpassing any of the animals. Consider 
the following example. A man receives an insult or an injury which 
excites his anger and the impulse to strike down the insulter. 
If bystanders intervene, he makes persistent and varied efforts to 
get at his foe, just as an angry dog may do. In that respect 
his behaviour differs from the animal's only in that he may evince 

and distances, and that in each of an indefinite multitude of such cases the visual 
impression may evoke from me the same reaction (e.g. the calling of his name), 
though in each case the sum of physical stimuli constituting the impression on 
the sense-organ is unique. The object " is always recognized as ' the same,' 
though the actual retinal image differs in every case. It is absolutely impossible 
to understand this fact on the assumption of any kind of preformed material 
recipient in the brain, corresponding to the stimulus in question " (p. jt^). 



270 BODY AND MIND 

greater cunning or intelligence in devising various means for the 
attainment of the end. But it differs greatly in one respect, 
namely, that separation from the offender in time and place may 
do little or nothing to turn the man from the pursuit of his end ; 
and in extreme cases the desire of this end, the striking down of 
his enemy, may dominate his behaviour for many years. Still 
more significant, of course, and still more remote from all possi- 
bility of mechanical explanation, is the self-control which enables 
another man under similar circumstances to suppress the angry 
impulse and, because he has learnt to value highly all nobility of 
conduct, to forgive the injury. 

We have seen in Chapter IV. how our ignorance of the 
mechanical possibilities of the body seemed to Spinoza the best 
defence of the assumption that all human behaviour is in principle 
capable of mechanical explanation. And in Chapter VIII, we 
have seen that the modern defenders of this assumption claim to 
have found in modern physiology an empirical justification of~it. 
It is true that modern physiology has shown that the nervous 
system consists of a vast number of material parts and that these 
are connected together in a vastly complex fashion ; so that any 
one, pointing to the brain, may plausibly ask — Who can assign 
limits to the possible achievements of a mechanism so intricate ? 
But the physiological doctrines on which the modern mechanist 
chiefly relies are, as we have seen, three : first, that the behaviour 
of lower organism consists wholly of series of reflex actions or 
tropisms and that these are purely mechanical movements ; 
secondly, that instinctive action is compound reflex action ; 
thirdly, that all intellectual operations consist in the compounding 
of sensations and in the associative reproduction of one sensation, 
" idea," or impression by another ; to which perhaps should be 
added the doctrine that volition is nothing more than the repro- 
duction (by some other impression or idea) of an idea of move- 
ment, on which the movement follows in a mechanical fashion. 

We have seen that increase of knowledge and insight has 
shown all of these assumptions to be illegitimate. We have seen 
that the behaviour of even the lowest animals presents features 
which defy purely mechanical explanation, and that these features 
become more and more prominent as we trace the modes of 
behaviour up the scale of life ; we have seen that instinctive 
action is not merely compound reflex action of a mechanical 
type, but that it implies a synthetic activity in virtue of which 



MECHANISM AND ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 271 

a manifold of sense-stimuli becomes the occasion of a unitary 
reaction of the whole organism, a reaction whose nature is 
dependent, not merely upon the nature of the several stimuli, but 
upon the meaning or significance which the organism discovers 
in their conjunction, and upon the relation of this meaning to its 
own dominant purpose at the moment. 

And we have seen that in human behaviour the independence 
of the reaction on the nature of the sense-stimuli becomes com- 
plete, so that on the one hand very diverse conjunctions of 
sense-stimuli evoke the same reaction, and, on the other hand, 
conjunctions of sense-stimuli differing only in respect to some 
minute detail may evoke totally different reactions ; that, in fact, 
the dominant part in the determination of the reaction is played 
by the meaning which the individual discovers in the sensory 
presentation, by the value which he attaches to this meaning, and 
by the relation of this value to his settled purposes. 

In short, throughout the scale of animal and human behaviour 
we see evidence that meaning, value, and purpose, of which we 
discern only doubtful traces at the bottom of the scale, play a 
part whose importance, relatively to the mechanical factors of 
reaction, constantly increases, until in human behaviour they 
dominate the scene. It is incumbent, then, on those who regard 
behaviour as mechanically explicable, to show how these factors, 
meaning, value, and purpose, may be mechanically conceived ; yet 
how this demonstration is to be made, or can be at all possible, has 
not hitherto been even vaguely foreshadowed. In a later chapter 
I shall return to this question and offer a conclusive proof that 
such demonstration is impossible. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE ARGUMENT TO PSYCHO-PHYSICAL INTERACTION 
FROM THE ''DISTRIBUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS" 

THE enunciation of the doctrine of organic evolution by- 
natural selection was, as we have seen, a heavy blow to 
Animism. We have now to note that the Darwinian 
principle provides one strong argument against psycho-physical 
Parallelism in all its forms, namely, the argument from the distri- 
bution of consciousness. 

Let us for the purpose of the argument use the language of 
Materialism, which describes the production of consciousness as 
one of the functions^of protoplasm or of nervous substance. Now, 
it is a corollary of the Darwinian principle that only functions 
which are of service to the individual organism or to the species 
in the struggle for existence can undergo any evolution throughout 
any long period of time, or can attain any considerable degree of 
development or width of distribution in the organic world. If, 
then, any function is found to have undergone a long continued 
progressive evolution, and to have attained a high degree of 
organization in many species, we may infer that it aids effectively 
in the struggle for survival. Now consciousness, or the production 
of consciousness, is such a function. Though one cannot of course 
attain absolute proof of the existence of any consciousness other 
than one's own, yet we all believe that other men have con- 
sciousness ; and all men qualified to form an opinion believe that 
the higher animals also enjoy consciousness (in the widest sense 
of the word in which it denotes sentiency and feeling of every 
degree, as well as the developed self-consciousness of man). And 
they believe also that, as higher forms of animal life were succes- 
sively evolved, each higher form enjoyed a richer more varied 
consciousness than the forms that preceded it in the evolutionary 
scale. Therefore, if we accept the Darwinian principle, we must 
believe that consciousness (or the production of consciousness) is 
a function that aids in the struggle for survival, and plays some 

272 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 273 

essential part in the control of the bodily processes and movements 
by means of which survival is achieved. The more minutely we 
study the distribution or occurrence of consciousness, the more 
certain does this inference appear. 

To this argument the epiphenomenalist can, I think, find no 
answer ; but the adherent of the two-aspect doctrine may say that 
all animals are conscious because all physical processes have their 
conscious aspect ; and the psychical monist may say that all 
animals are necessarily conscious because all things are conscious- 
n,ess ; and both may maintain that the richer consciousness of the 
higher forms of animal life is merely the expression of the greater 
complexity of their organization. It is necessary, therefore, to 
press the argument more in detail, and to say to the parallelists : 
If we accept for the moment your assumption that all things are 
conscious or are consciousness, you are bound to distinguish two 
varieties or modes of consciousness, namely, on the one hand, 
integrated or personal or true consciousness, which in human 
beings is that of which the other aspect or phenomenon is 
certain parts of the cerebrum ; and, on the other hand, all that 
consciousness which is the inner aspect or underlying reality of 
the rest of the nervous system and bodily organism, which does 
not in our own case enter into the stream of our integrated 
personal consciousness, and which may be distinguished as sub- 
consciousness or secondary consciousness. Now, our argument 
applies to consciousness of the former kind only. It is the 
integrated consciousness (the only kind of consciousness of which 
we have any knowledge) which in the course of organic evolution 
has become ever richer and fuller, and has culminated in the personal 
consciousness of man. Of this form of consciousness our corollary 
from the Darwinian principles holds good ; we infer from the 
progressive integration of consciousness that this integration has 
brought advantages in the struggle for existence, and that 
integrated consciousness plays some part which is impossible to 
the hypothetical sub-consciousness. The psychical monist may 
reply that progressive integration of consciousness is the essence 
of the evolutionary process, and that what appears to us as increas- 
ing complexity of organization throughout the evolutionary scale 
is the phenomenal appearance of the increasing integration of con- 
sciousness. And this reply would be satisfactory, if the degrees of 
integration of consciousness throughout the scale ran parallel to the 
degrees of complexity of bodily organization. But this is not the 

18 



274^ BODY AND MIND 

fact. We have good reason to believe that not only in man, but in 
all the vertebrate animals, the integrated consciousness is associated 
with the brain only, and that the integration of consciousness 
runs parallel throughout the scale with the degree of development 
of the brain and especially of the cerebrum or great brain. Now, 
the large brain which we find in man and many of the mammals 
of the present day is a product of a comparatively recent evolu- 
tion. At the close of the secondary geological period there lived 
many species of vertebrates which, as regards their whole bodily 
organization (the brain alone excepted), were as complex and as 
highly evolved as any existing animals.^ But their brains were, 
without exception, very small. The great increase of size of the 
brain has, in fact, been the principal feature of animal evolution 
since that period ; it is as though Nature, having achieved per- 
fection in merely bodily organization some millions of years ago, 
had then concentrated all her efforts on the further evolution of 
mind, of the brain and the integrated consciousness that goes 
with it. 

Now, if the psychical monist could show that the integration 
of consciousness is a necessary by-product of the process of 
organization which appears as the evolution of the brain ; or if he 
could offer any explanation of the fact that the organization of 
all the rest of the body involves no integration of consciousness 
such as that of the brain involves, he would escape the point of 
the argument ; but just this he cannot do. Before the problem 
of the unity of personal consciousness he stands perfectly helpless, 
as I shall have occasion to show in the following chapter. 

The foregoing argument may be resumed in a few words, as 
follows. The parallelists' fundamental assumption that all is 
consciousness, or that all things have their conscious aspect, does 
not enable him to escape the corollary of the Darwinian principle's 
that consciousness aids in the struggle for life ; because he is bound 
to recognize two forms of consciousness, namely, real consciousness 
and unconscious consciousness or pseudo-consciousness ; and in 
the course of animal evolution the former has (according to this 
view) been developed out of the latter, and a principal feature of 
the later stages of evolution has been the increase of consciousness 
proper relatively to the hypothetical lower form of consciousness. 

^ It seems probable that the Pterodactyle would compare well with any 
existing creature in respect to complexity of organization and nicety of adapta- 
tion to its mode of life, except as regards brain and adaptability. 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 275 

The above discussion must, I fear, seem grotesque and tedious 
to anyone who has not thoroughly grasped the parallelist position 
and has not grappled with the task of thinking out its implications. 

And now, having shown that the argument from the distri- 
bution of consciousness holds good against the parallelist as well 
as the epiphenomenalist, we may briefly complete the argument 
without delaying to translate the language of it into the special 
forms required by each variety of the parallelist doctrine. 

The argument to the usefulness of consciousness from its dis- 
tribution in the animal scale finds strong confirmation in the facts 
of its distribution in the individual organism. 

In ourselves a large number of nervous processes, namely, all or 
most of those by which the vegetative life is controlled, normally 
contribute little or nothing to our personal consciousness ; if they are 
in any sense conscious processes or are accompanied by conscious- 
ness, this consciousness normally remains shut out from the stream 
of personal consciousness ; and we may for convenience speak of 
them as unconscious processes. Now there obtains a very striking 
and important difference between the unconscious nervous processes 
(which for the most part are confined to the spinal cord and lower 
brain) and the conscious processes (which go on wholly or chiefly 
in the cerebrum or upper brain). The difference is that the 
nervous structures in which the former occur are in the main 
hereditarily determined, and but little, if at all, modifiable in the 
course of individual experience ; whereas the nervous processes of 
the other class occur in nervous structures which are extremely 
plastic, and whose development is moulded in great degree by the 
course of individual experience. The cerebrum of the infant 
seems, in fact, to consist in large part of nervous matter not 
innately organized, but constituting an immense mass of plastic 
material which gradually becomes organized under the touch of 
experience ; and all mental acquisition, all formation of habits 
and associations, seems to involve the organization of this plastic 
tissue into fixed patterns or configurations of nervous channels. 
We must recc^nise, then, a broad difference between the two 
types of nervous tissue and process : the conscious are plastic, the 
unconscious fixed and invariable. 

But more significant still are the following facts : on repetition 
the plastic process tends to pass over into the other class ; it be- 
comes increasingly fixed and invariable ; and we have good ground 
for believing that this implies the formation of definite paths of 



276 BODY AND MIND 

connexion between the nervous elements involved, so that they 
form systems similar to those hereditarily fixed systems by means 
of which the vegetative functions are controlled. Now it is a 
familiar truth that the first acquisition of a habit or an association 
requires attentive effort and clear consciousness of the several 
steps of the process, and that with repetition the process goes on 
more " automatically," more smoothly and easily, with less atten- 
tion, and with less clear consciousness of the end, or of the steps, 
or of the sense-impressions by which it is guided ; and finally, 
after sufficient repetition, it seems to go on without any efibrt or 
attention and without our being conscious of it, save possibly 
in an extremely obscure fashion, or, in the common phrase, the 
process becomes secondarily automatic, mechanized, and uncon- 
scious ; and at the same time it passes more or less completely 
out of our power of voluntary control and regulation. In other 
words, nervous processes are of two kinds. On the one hand are 
those processes which take place in organized and fixed systems of 
nervous elements ; whether these systems are organized hereditarily 
or in the course of, and under the influence of, individual 
experience, the processes that occur in them take place without 
affecting personal consciousness, save perhaps in some very 
obscure fashion, and without any sense of effort, without attention, 
though there is reason to doubt whether they are ever completely 
mechanized or completely and finally withdrawn from the possibility 
of mental control.^ On the other hand are processes which occur 
in nervous tissue that is still plastic, not completely organized in 
functional systems ; these processes, and these only, are accom- 
panied by clear consciousness, by attention, by effort, by explicit 
volition ; and these, on repetition, pass over into the former class ; 
the nervous elements in which they occur become more and more 
firmly organized, and, in proportion as this organization progresses, 
attentive consciousness ceases to be involved in or to accompany 
them. All mental growth, or at least all formation of fixed 
habits and associations of every kind, seems to involve such 
progressive organization of new nervous elements within fixed 
systems. Attention, which is essentially conation or will, is, as 
Dr Stout has well said,'-^ the growing point of the mind ; it is 
concentrated wherever the process of organization of nervous 

1 The facts of hypnosis and alhed conditions in which the power of the mind 
over the body seems to be greatly increased necessitate this reservation. 

2 " Analytic Psychology." 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 277 

elements is going on ; and when, and in proportion as, this 
process approaches completion, attention (which means conation 
and clear consciousness) is set free to be concentrated upon other 
processes involving mental acquisition or growth. For it is a 
further distinction between the processes of these two kinds that, 
while the " mechanized " processes do not seriously interfere with 
other nervous processes, whether of the same or of the other kind, 
processes involving attentive consciousness interfere with one 
another in proportion to the degree of effort, or of concentration 
of attention, required by each of them. 

Clear consciousness and conation are then invariable con- 
comitants, not of nervous process in general, nor of all nervous 
processes occurring in the cerebral cortex or in any other part of 
the brain, but of those nervous processes that occur in nervous 
elements not yet organized in fixed systems ; and wherever a 
new path has to be forced through the untrodden jungle of nerve 
cells, there and there only is conscious effort, true mental activity, 
involved. Without conation there is no mental growth, and the 
stronger the psychical impulse, the desire or effort of will, the 
more effectively are the difficulties of new acquisition overcome ; 
and an effect of all such processes, an effect whose degree is pro- 
portional to the intensity of the conation and the corresponding 
concentration of attention involved, is the organization of the 
nervous elements, the combination of them in fixed functional 
systems. 

We have, then, a perfect case of invariable concomitance and 
sequence ; the nervous process that occurs in unorganized elements 
(and this only) is invariably accompanied by attentive conscious- 
ness ; and such process invariably results in some degree of 
organization of the nervous elements, a degree which is 
proportional to the degree of attentive effort involved. How 
different, then, are the facts from the assumptions as to the 
relation of consciousness to nervous process necessarily implied 
and generally asserted by the parallelists and epiphenomenalists, 
namely, an invariable parallelism or concomitance in time of 
consciousness and of all nervous process (or all cerebral process) 
without distinction ! The relations are such as imply that clear 
consciousness and conation play some real part in bringing about 
the organization of nervous elements, that the relation between 
conation or conscious mental activity and nervous organization is 
the causal relation. 



278 BODY AND MIND 

Well founded views as to the nature of the cerebral processes 
enable us to go further and to form some more intimate notion 
of the nature of the process of nervous organization, in which 
consciousness and conation seem to play this essential role. The 
building up of neural systems seems to be essentially the 
establishment of paths of low resistance between the various 
elements or neurons concerned ; the establishment of such a path 
seems to be the effect of the passage of a stream of nervous energy 
across the synapses, the places at which the neurons are in 
contact or close proximity with one another ; for the synapses 
seem to be not only the places of connexion of neurons, but also 
the seats of the resistances by which the spread of the nervous 
excitation from neuron to neuron is limited and directed. 

Organized systems of neurons are such as have low internal 
resistances ; and systems of neurons and unorganized neurons are 
separated from others by synapses that present a high degree of 
resistance to the passage of the current of nervous energy. The 
essential feature of the process of organization is, then, the forcing 
of a passage across synapses of high resistance ; and it would 
seem that for this forcing of a passage a concentration of nervous 
energy, resulting in a high potential of charge of nervous energy 
in the neurons, is an essential condition.^ This process of 
concentration of nervous energy, resulting in its accumulation 
from places of lower potential into one system of neurons where 
the potential is raised to a high level and in its discharge across 
synapses of high resistance (and not nervous process in general) 
is, then, the process that is invariably and proportionally 
accompanied by clear consciousness and conative effort. Now 
this process is one that seems to be mechanically inexplicable ; it 
involves just such antagonism of the tendency to dissipation and 
degradation of energy as we have seen to be characteristic of 
living organisms ; it seems, in fact, to be the supreme manifestation 
of this power. It is just here, then, that we should expect to 
find operative any power of psychical intervention in the 

^ This is implied by the fact that in proportion to the effort required, the free 
nervous energy of the brain (or neurokyme) seems to be withdrawn from all 
other tracts of the brain, so that they are inhibited in proportion to the degree' 
to which their activities require a high potential of energy, or, in other words, in 
proportion as the various systems active at the moment fall short of complete 
organization or " mechanization." It is implied also by many other physiological 
facts which cannot be detailed here (see paper by the author on " Nature of 
Inhibitory Processes within the Nervous System," "Brain," vol. xxvi.). 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS 279 

mechanical sequence of events, and it is here that we might 
attempt to apply any one of those conceptions of guidance 
without work, which, as we saw in Chapter XIV., would permit 
of psychical intervention in the course of the brain-processes 
without breach of the law of conservation of energy in its strictest 
form. And it is just of this process that conation or psychical 
effort seems to be an invariable and necessary condition.^ 

The facts, then, point strongly to the view that conation or 
psychical effort really intervenes in the course of the physical 
processes of the brain, and that it plays an essential role in the 
building up of the organization of the brain. And it may be 
plausibly maintained that all other modes of consciousness serve 
but to guide or determine the incidence of conation, the primary 
and most fundamental form of psychical activity. 

The argument from the Darwinian principles to the usefulness 
of consciousness to the organism may be put in a rather different 
way, which I will indicate very briefly only. 

All the immense variety of qualities of sensation that we 
experience seem to be in some sense compounded from a limited 
number of primary or elementary qualities of sensation ; and it is 
generally agreed that we have to regard all the primary qualities 
of sensation as having been differentiated step by step from some 
primordial germ of sensation of undifferentiated quality. 

Now we are compelled to believe that to each of these primary 
qualities of sensation there corresponds as its invariable accom- 
paniment a neural process of peculiar or specific quality ; and 
there is very strong ground for believing that each such process 
owes it unique quality to the peculiar physico-chemical constitution 
of the nervous substance in which it takes place.^ These very 

^ This argument was presented by the author in some detail in a series of 
papers in "Mind," N.S., vol. vii. ("A Contribution towards an Improvement 
of Psychological Method "), and has been elaborated in later papers, especially 
" Physiological Factors of the Attention-process " ("Mind," N.S., vol. x.), " The 
Seat of the Psycho-physical Processes " (" Brain," vol. xxiv.). 

^ I have argued in the papers referred to above that these substances of 
specific constitution, presumably the most highly specialized of all forms of 
organic matter, reside at the synapses of the cerebrum, and that the immediate 
occasion of sensation is the discharge of nervous energy across such substance 
from neuron to neuron. But this suggestion, though it harmonizes well with 
the argument of the foregoing pages, is not a necessary part of the present^ 
argument. It may be pointed out in passing that these highly speciahzed sub- 
stances and their exact distribution in various parts of the cerebrum are among 
the innate characters of the adult organism, and that they have to be regarded 
as provided for, or determined by, the constitution of the germ cell, if the 
mechanical view of the process of heredity is accepted. 



28o , BODY AND MIND 

highly specialized substances have, then, been gradually evolved 
and differentiated in the course of evolution of the animal kingdom, 
and they must therefore be of value to the organisms that possess 
them. But, so far as we can at present see, the specific characters 
of these substances are without significance for the mechanical 
operations of the brain ; they seem to subserve no other function 
in the life of the organism than just the production of a rich variety 
of qualities of sensation. If further research should prove this 
view to be true (and the evidence we already have strongly 
supports it), then we shall have in these facts another strong 
reason for believing in the value of consciousness to the organism 
and in the intervention of psychical factors in the course of the 
mechanical processes of the brain. 



CHAPTER XXI 
THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 

IN this chapter we have to consider from several points of view 
the fact of the unity of personal consciousness and the 
difficulties which this fact raises for all forms of Parallelism. 
The problem of the unity of consciousness has been much dis- 
cussed, and the discussion has been conducted along two rather 
different lines ; the one line of discussion, neglecting physiological 
considerations, has relied on purely psychological and meta- 
physical reasoning ; the other has kept constantly in view the 
bearing of physiological facts. We may with advantage follow 
up these two lines separately ; but we shall see that they 
converge to a common conclusion. 

Every form of Parallelism necessarily assumes that the con- 
sciousness of any complex organism is in some sense composite, 
that it is compounded from, or made up of, elements which in 
principle are capable of existing in separation from the whole of 
which they form part, and that it is a unity only in the same 
sense as the bodily organism is a unity. Most of the parallelists 
frankly accept this corollary of their doctrine. The late Professor 
Ebbinghaus, for example,^ likened the unity of human conscious- 
ness to the unity of a plant. Like the plant, he said, consciousness 
has many distinguishable parts, namely the various sensations, the 
details of imagery, and the feelings, which introspective analysis 
discovers in any section of its stream ; between these parts or 
elements obtain systematic functional relations, in virtue of which 
they constitute an organic whole or unity, just as the leaves, 
flowers, stem, and roots of a plant form an organic unity in virtue 
of the functional relations that obtain between them. 

This doctrine that consciousness is compounded from elements 
is the essence of what has been well named the atomistic 
psychology. The parallelists, who are logically compelled to 
subscribe to this atomistic doctrine, are the more ready to do so 

^ " Grundziigey. Psychologic," Bk. I. § 2. 

281 



282 BODY AND MIND 

because the " association-psychology," which had been developed 
with little or no reference to this special problem, had made this 
doctrine the foundation of all its reasonings and had in some 
measure justified it by its partial success in throwing light on our 
mental operations. The association-psychology owed its rise to 
Locke's doctrine of the compounding of simple ideas to form 
complex ideas, and it has always retained this as its most funda- 
mental assumption. But in one respect later exponents, notably 
J. S. Mill, found themselves compelled to modify it, namely by 
the introduction of the conception of " Mental Chemistry." For 
it was realized that introspection cannot always discover in the 
complex idea the simple ideas or elements of consciousness of which 
it is said to be compounded ; it was assumed therefore that the 
elements or smaller fragments of consciousness do not merely 
cohere side by side to form the complex ideas, but that they 
coalesce or combine, yielding up more or less completely their 
original natures to form compounds whose nature is more or less 
different from that of each of the coalescing parts. 

Thus, it is said that, when I experience a sensation of the 
quality purple, that sensation is produced by the compounding of 
two simple sensations, one of the quality red and one of the quality 
blue ; or that, when I perceive a spot of light to be in a certain 
direction, my consciousness of the light-in-that-direction is a com- 
plex which is formed by the coalescence of the visual sensation with 
certain sensations of the " muscular sense " excited by the position 
or movements of the head and eyeballs ; or that, when I judge 
one piece of bread to be larger than a second piece, my mental 
process is essentially the association of the idea of the one piece with 
the idea " larger " or with the idea of largeness, and that my state 
of consciousness is the complex idea produced by the compounding 
of these two simpler ideas. And, according to this doctrine, when 
I will a certain movement, my volition is merely a state of con- 
sciousness compounded of the idea of the movement that I am 
about to make with some obscure sensations of muscular strain in 
the scalp, or throat, or elsewhere, and perhaps also with the idea 
of myself, which in turn is a compound of many simple sensations 
and ideas. 

On the other hand the Animist, who believes that the soul is 
something more than the fleeting stream of consciousness, main- 
tains that the consciousness of any individual is or has a unity ot 
a unique kind which has no analogue in the physical realm, and 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 283 

that it cannot properly be regarded as consisting of elements, 
units, or atoms of consciousness, put together or compounded 
in any way. He maintains that the unity of individual con- 
sciousness is a fundamental and primary fact, and that we are 
logically bound to infer some ground of this unity other than 
consciousness itself; he holds that each man's consciousness is a 
unitary whole and is separate and distinct from the consciousness 
of every other organism, just because it is a state or activity of a 
psychical subject, the ego, soul, or spirit, which is essentially a 
unitary and distinct being. He regards as illegitimate the con- 
ception of fragments or atoms of consciousness, particles of 
sensation or feeling, of mind-stuff or mind-dust of any kind, and 
rejects the motion that such fragments come into being or exist 
independently and are capable of being combined according to 
the laws of a " mental chemistry." He insists that no one has 
ever come upon such a fragment of consciousness lying about 
loose or unattached anywhere in the world ; that each of us knows 
sensations and feelings only as introspectively distinguishable, but 
inseparable, parts of the stream of his own consciousness, and 
that nothing in our experience justifies us in believing that such 
mind-dust exists or can exist. 

This doctrine of " mental chemistry " assumes that the 
atoms of consciousness, say two elementary sensations, come 
together and, fusing, yield up their own natures to form 
a third thing unlike both. But this is in itself an inadmissible 
notion ; the quality of a sensation is its very being, its esse 
is truly percipi, and to suppose that, on being compounded 
with a second sensation, it ceases to be itself and becomes 
something else, is strictly absurd. The supposed chemical 
analogy of the compounding of atoms of hydrogen and oxygen 
to form water does not in the least justify this conception ; for in 
this case the atoms do not change their natures on being com- 
bined ; they merely appear different, because the compound 
affects our senses and other things in other ways than the pure 
substances. That the atoms retain their essential nature un- 
changed appears clearly, if the compound is decomposed. When, 
however, simultaneous stimulation by red and blue lights gives 
rise to sensation of the quality purple, this sensation is not 
merely two sensations of red and blue qualities, appearing 
different in virtue of their being conjoined ; rather it is in itself 
something different from both the red and the blue qualities. 



284 BODY AND MIND 

To all this it may be added that, when the psychical monist 
claims that his position is superior to all others because it 
postulates or infers no form of existence not directly known to 
us, he is making a false claim ; for the mind-dust which he is 
compelled to postulate as the raw material of consciousness is, 
like the soul of the Animist, a hypothetical form of existence 
reached only by inference from immediate experience. 

Most of the arguments briefly indicated in the foregoing 
paragraph have been presented by Lotze, the greatest modern 
defender of Animism, and it is impossible to state them more 
forcibly than in his words. " A mere sensation without a 
subject," he wrote, " is nowhere to be met with as a fact. It 
is impossible to speak of a bare movement without thinking 
of the mass whose movement it is ; and it is just as impossible 
to conceive a sensation existing without the accompanying idea 
of that which has it, or rather of that which feels it ; ... It 
is thus, and thus only, that the sensation is a given fact ; and 
we have no right to abstract from its relation to its subject 
because the relation is puzzling, and because we wish to obtain 
a starting-point which looks more convenient, but is utterly 
unwarranted by experience." 

Even if we were to admit the conception of fragments of 
consciousness capable of being compounded and associated 
together, such compounding and associating could yield at most 
only the content of consciousness ; we could not admit the 
further assumption necessarily made by the parallelists, the 
assumption namely that we can explain in terms of such com- 
pounding and associating the processes of knowing, judging, com- 
paring, desiring, willing, and reasoning. For these processes 
involve psychical activities which are more than and other than the 
processes of associative reproduction. Lotze made this his principal 
argument for the existence of the soul and for its interaction with 
the body. He wrote — " Any comparison of two ideas, which 
ends by our finding their contents like or unlike, presupposes the 
absolutely indivisible unity of that which compares them, and it 
must be one and the same thing which first forms the idea of a, 
then that of b, and which at the same time is conscious of the 
nature and extent of the difference between them. Then again 
the various acts of comparing ideas and referring them to one 
another are themselves in turn reciprocally related ; and their 
relation brings a new activity of comparison to consciousness. 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 285 

And so our whole inner world of thoughts is built up, not as a 
mere collection of manifold ideas existing with or after one 
another, but as a world in which these individual members are 
held together and arranged by the relating activity of this single 
pervading principle. This then is what we mean by the unity of 
consciousness, and it is this that we regard as the sufficient 
ground for assuming an indivisible soul." 

To these two arguments from the unity of consciousness, 
Lotze added a third, namely that from the consciousness of the 
self as a unity. This argument has been much insisted upon by 
a class of writers who assert — " I am aware of myself as a spiritual 
unity, therefore I am no mere system of minor selves or of frag- 
ments of consciousness, but an immortal soul " ; and some of them 
go so far as to assert that the consciousness of self as a unity 
is always present in all forms of mental process. This, of course, 
is merely bad psychology constructed in the interests of a priori 
speculation. But Lotze gave the argument a more subtle form. 
" Our belief in the soul's unity," he said, " rests not on our appear- 
ing to ourselves such a unity, but on our being able to appear to 
ourselves at all. Did we appear to ourselves something quite 
different, nay, did we seem to ourselves to be an unconnected 
plurality, we would from this very fact, from the bare possibility 
of appearing anything to ourselves, deduce the necessary unity 
of our being, this time in open contradiction with what self- 
observation set before us as our own image. What a being 
appears to itself to be, is not the important point ; if it can appear 
anyhow to itself, or other things to it, it must be capable of 
unifying manifold phenomena in an absolute indivisibility of its 
nature." Again, he wrote — " What is apt to perplex us in 
this question is the somewhat thoughtless way in which we 
so often allow ourselves to play fast and loose with the 
notion of appearance. We are content with setting in con- 
trast to it the being that appears, and v/e forget that the 
appearance is impossible without another being that sees 
it. We fancy that appearance comes forth from the hidden 
depths of being-in-itself, like a lustre existing before there is any 
eye for it to arise in, extending into reality, present to and 
apprehensible by him who will grasp it, but none the less con- 
tinuing to exist even if known by none. We here overlook that 
even in the region of sensation, from which this image is borrowed, 
the lustre emitted by objects only seems to be emitted by them, 



286 BODY AND MIND 

and that it can even seem to come from them, only because our 
eyes are there, the receptive organ of a cognitive soul, to which 
appearances are possible. The lustre of light does not spread 
itself around us, but like all phenomena dwells only in the 
consciousness of him for whom it exists. And of this conscious- 
ness, of this general capacity that makes the appearance of 
anything possible, we maintain that it can be an attribute only of 
the indivisible unity of one being, and that every attempt to 
ascribe it to a plurality, however bound together, will, by its 
failure, but confirm our conviction of the supersensible unity of 
the soul." ^ 

That, to my mind, is a beautiful piece of reasoning which 
carries great weight. Nevertheless it would seem that this 
reasoning, though it cannot be refuted, is incapable of compelling 
assent to its conclusion ; for, since Lotze wrote these words, 
Parallelism has gained ground rapidly against Animism — if 
success be reckoned in terms of the numbers of those who 
accept the rival doctrines. I believe that the argument from 
the unity of consciousness to the real being of the soul may 
be made more compelling by keeping the facts of cerebral 
physiology closely in view, especially facts which have been 
discovered since Lotze wrote the passages cited above. 

From the early days of speculation, physiologists have mani- 
fested a tendency to seek some unitary organ within the body 
the physical processes of which might be regarded as correspond- 
ing to the unity of consciousness. Aristotle postulated such an 
organ, ascribing to it more especially the perceptual functions 
that are common to the several senses. The notion of a sensoriuin 
connmLue, thus launched into the culture-tradition by Aristotle, has 
served many later thinkers of anti-animistic tendency as a substi- 
tute for the soul ; and the search for a sensoriuin commune has 
been at various times confused with the search for the seat of 
the soul. We have seen in Chapter VIII. that the long search 
for a punctual or central seat of the soul has proved fruitless 
and that this result has contributed to bring about the rejec- 
tion of Animism. We have now to see that the search for a 
sensorium commune has proved equally fruitless, and that this 
result provides one of the strongest arguments in support of 
'Animism. 

The fundamental fact which requires explanation may be 
1 " Metaphysik," Bk. III. chap. i. 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 287 

stated in the following concrete form : — when the eye and the ear 
of any person are simultaneously stimulated, the sensory effects 
of the stimuli applied to the two organs and of the excitations of 
the two nerves, the optic and the auditory, somehow cohere or 
belong together in the peculiar way which consists in being partial 
modifications of one consciousness : the stimuli and their im- 
mediate effects in the nerves are separate and distinct, yet their 
effects in consciousness belong together as parts of one whole. 
This fact has been very commonly held to imply that some- 
where in the brain the two nervous excitations must become one. 
And, since the effects of all stimuli simultaneously applied to the 
senses of one organism become compounded in this way to form 
parts of one complex whole, the stream of consciousness, it seemed 
necessary to suppose that all the sensory nerves transmit their 
excitations to some one part of the brain, in which they are com- 
pounded to a complex physical resultant, the physical correlate 
of the complex psychical resultant. It was to this hypothetical 
common sensory centre that the name sensorium commune was 
appropriately applied. 

Before the issue between Parallelism and Animism had be- 
come clearly defined, this hypothetical centre was identified in some 
minds with the seat of the soul. This view was, perhaps, first 
formulated by Descartes, but Lotze (who afterwards rejected it) has 
given the clearest presentation of it in his " Medizinische Psycho- 
logie." ^ He argued that we must expect to find somewhere in the 
brain a central chamber filled with a structureless jelly or paren- 
chyma, as he called it, upon which all the sensory nerves abut in 
such a way that the excitation passing up any one of them must 
be communicated to the jelly. He assumed, as many others have 
done, that the nervous excitation is a vibration or undulation, 
whose form is different in the several nerves, and that, when several 
such vibrations are simultaneously imparted to the central jelly, 
it becomes the seat of a complex vibration which is the physical 
resultant of all the simpler waves. The jelly was thus to serve as 
the sensorium commune or physical medium of composition of the 
effects of sensory stimuli. 

Other modern writers, feeling the need of such a medium of 

composition of the effects of sensory stimuli, have seen it in various 

parts of the brain ; W. B. Carpenter,^ for example, claimed the 

optic thalamus as such an organ, and Herbert Spencer the pons 

^ Published in 1852. 2 " Mental Physiology." 



288 BODY AND MIND 

cerebri}- Others have postulated, at the apex of a hierarchy of 
cells, a pontifical cell which might play this role. 

But the progress of our knowledge of the brain has shown 
conclusively that there exists no one part to which all sensory 
paths converge, and which might be regarded as a sensorium 
commune in the sense defined above. It has been shown on the 
contrary that the tracts of fibres ascending to the brain from the 
sense-organs of different functions pass to widely separated parts 
of the cerebral cortex, the sensory areas, and that the various 
qualities of sensation depend upon or are evoked by the processes 
of these several areas. 

Faced with these facts, some of those who have seen the 
necessity of postulating some medium of composition of the 
effects of sensory stimuli have suggested other possibilities of 
physical composition. E. von. Hartmann,^ for example, suggested 
that, whenever any two (or more) sensory nerves are simultaneously 
excited, the excitation-process in the central station of each pro- 
pagates itself through some intervening tract of fibres to that of 
the other, so that this tract becomes the seat of a complex 
vibration which is the physical resultant of the two processes, 
and that it thus serves as the medium of composition required. 

One other view only of the nature of the hypothetical material 
medium of composition seems possible, namely the one forcibly 
advocated by G. H. Lewes.^ Lewes' knowledge of the nervous 
system forbade him to accept the notion of any central part or 
pontifical cell of the brain that might serve as the sensorium 
commune ; he therefore heroically proposed to identify it with the 
whole of the brain ; he supposed that vibrations of various forms 
are impressed on the sensory nerves in the sense-organs, and that 
each such vibration propagates itself throughout the whole nervous 
system, which is thus pervaded in all its parts at any moment by 
a complex vibration, the physical resultant of the vibrations 
initiated at the preceding moment in the several sensory nerves. 

Now all three views of the nature of the assumed physical 
medium of composition (and no others have been or can be 
suggested) are purely speculative ; no particle of evidence directly 
supporting any one of them can be adduced. The knowledge we 
now have of the nervous system and its functions enables us to 
reject the second and third views as decisively as the first, and 

^ " Principles of Psychology." ^ " Philosophy of the Unconscious." 

3 " The Physical Basis of Mind." 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 289 

to assert confidently that there exists in the brain no such 
physical medium of composition, and that the processes of the 
several sensory nerves simultaneously excited do not affect any 
common material medium to produce in it a complex physical 
resultant. I might substantiate this statement by showing that 
each of these three views is incompatible with well-established 
general principles of cerebral physiology, e.g. the principle that 
the primary qualities of sensation are determined by the specific 
constitutions of the nervous substances in the cerebral terminals of 
the sensory nerves and that these are widely scattered through 
the cerebral cortex and, perhaps, in part in the basal ganglia ^ ; 
the principle, recently established, that nervous conduction is not 
a mere physical vibration, but involves chemical change ; and the 
principle of localization of cerebral functions in general. These 
and other general considerations render it in the highest degree 
probable that the physical conditions or accompaniments of the 
complex state of sensation obtaining at any moment in the 
individual consciousness (and our consciousness always involves a 
complex of sensations more or less obscure or clear) are a number 
of physico-chemical processes running their courses separately in 
many widely scattered parts of the cerebrum. 

But the strongest evidence against the view that the effects 
of simultaneous sense-stimuli are physically compounded may be 
provided by the demonstration that no such compounding occurs 
in one particular instance in which it has been and still is most 
confidently assumed, namely the instance of binocular vision. 
When we look at any object with both eyes, both retinae and 
both optic nerves are stimulated ; why then do we see one object 
only ? The commonly accepted answer runs — ^Because the fibres 
from each pair of corresponding points of the two retinae converge 
in the brain to a common path or centre. I propose to show very 
briefly that this answer is untrue. Let us consider the facts in 
their most simple and striking form, in order to appreciate as 
clearly as possible the nature of the problem. Two men, A and 

^ This is the modern form of the doctrine of specific energies of sensory nerves. 
Many attempts have been made to overthrow th5s principle, but without 
success. Prof. Wundt, for example, claims to have replaced it by the doctrine 
of the original indiiference of function of cerebral centres ; but his doctrine, 
even if tenable, only differs from the more generally accepted principle in main- 
taining that the specific constitutions of sensory centres are impressed upon 
them in the course of individual development (" Grundziige der Phys. 
Psychologic "). 

19 



290 BODY AND MIND 

B, are in a dark room in which is a single small illuminated area 
or spot of white light. A puts a red glass before his left eye and 
looks directly at the spot with that eye only. B puts a blue 
glass before his right eye and looks at the spot with that eye 
only. A sees a red spot, B a blue one ; a sensation of quality 
red is experienced by A, blue by B. Then A, keeping the red 
glass before his left eye, puts the blue glass before his right eye, 
and, looking at the spot with both eyes, sees a purple spot, i.e., 
he experiences a sensation of which the quality is neither red nor 
blue, but rather blue red, a composite quality which has affinity to 
both blue and red, but which is widely different from both. Why 
this difference between the two cases ? ^ 

The ordinarily accepted answer runs — In the former case the 
red and blue lights excite nervous processes which run their 
courses separately in the brains of A and B respectively ; the 
physical causes of the red and blue sensations are separate and 
distinct, and therefore the sensations are distinct; but in the 
second case the nervous processes excited by the red and the 
blue lights respectively are transmitted to the same part, or 
same group of nervous elements, of the one brain and are there 
physically compounded, and therefore only one sensation is 
excited and this is of neither red nor blue quality, but partakes 
of both qualities. 

I cannot display here the evidence in detail which proves that 
no such physical com.position of effects takes place, since much of 
it is of a highly technical character ; and I must refer the reader 
who wishes to study it to a separately published paper in which 
it is set out more fully.'-^ But it seems worth while to set down 
here the main heads of this evidence as follows : — 

(i) The spot of light seen with red and blue glasses before 
the two eyes respectively does not always appear purple ; at 
moments it appears pure red, and at others pure blue, an instance 
of the phenomenon known as the struggle of the two visual fields, 
or retinal rivalry. And by voluntary effort either colour may be 
made to predominate over the other. It is difficult to reconcile 
this alternation of the two colours in consciousness with the view 
that the excitations of the two optic nerves become physically com- 

^ The problem may be presented in a form rather more striking perhaps, 
but more complicated, by substituting a bluish-green glass for the blue one. The 
subject A will then see a white spot, though his left eye is stimulated by red light 
and his right eye by blue-green light. 

* " The Relations between Corresponding Retinal Points," Brain, vol. 34. 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 291 

pounded in the visual centres of the cerebrum ; and it is still more 
difficult to reconcile with this view the possibility of re-enforcing 
by voluntary effort either process to the exclusion of the other. 

(2) If, instead of red and blue glasses, a single darkly-smoked 
glass is used before one eye (so as to diminish the intensity of 
the stimulus to that retina), and if then the illuminated area is 
looked at with the uncovered eye only, and after a few seconds 
the other eye is opened behind the smoked glass, the illumination 
of the area appears to be diminished at this moment ; and, if one 
continues to observe it under these conditions, it may appear to 
becom.e alternately brighter and darker every few seconds. This is 
the phenomenon known as Fechner's paradox. The fact of chief 
importance from our present point of view is that the opening of 
the eye behind the smoked glass diminishes the apparent brightness 
of the area; and if (according to the assumption) we regard the 
two eyes as the terminals of a single sense-organ, we must say 
that an addition to the total physical stimulus to the sense-organ 
diminishes the intensity of the sensation. But, if the excitations 
initiated in the corresponding areas of the two retinae were trans- 
mitted to a common centre and there compounded, the effects of 
the two stimuli should be summed together, and the effect of 
opening the eye behind the smoked glass should be to increase 
the intensity of the sensation. 

(3) Allied to the last and even more significant, though its 
significance is apt to be obscured by our familiarity with it, is 
the fact that, when we look at any illuminated surface with both 
eyes, it appears no brighter (or so little brighter that it is very 
difficult to be sure of the difference) than when looked at with 
one eye only ; that is to say the doubling of the physical stimulus 
produces no increase (or only a very slight increase) in the 
intensity of sensation. This fact clearly is incompatible with 
the common view that the two optic nerves transmit their excita- 
tions to be summed in a common centre ; for if that were the case, 
the opening of the second eye on any illuminated surface should 
produce the same well-marked degree of increase of brightness or 
of intensity of the sensation, as doubling the illumination of the sur- 
face, i.e. as doubling the intensity of stimulation of the one retina. 

(4) In certain cases of hysteria the patient becomes for a 
time wholly blind of one eye ; and a similar condition may be 
temporarily induced in many subjects by verbal suggestion 
during hypnosis. Now such functional blindness is in all pro- 



292 BODY AND MIND 

bability due to an arrest of the activity of the sensory centre 
of the cerebral cortex ; it is impossible to suppose that the 
verbal suggestion can paralyze the optic tract below the cortex, 
while leaving the cortical centre of the tract in activity ; yet this 
would have to be supposed to occur, if the cortical centres of the 
two retinse are identical.^ 

(5) In certain rare cases a lesion of the visual cortex has 
produced a small area of blindness in one retina only ; a fact fatal 
to the common view. 

(6) If the corresponding points of the two retinae sent their 
fibres to a common cortical centre, this relation of" correspondence " 
should be definitely fixed and incapable of being altered ; but we 
find that in some cases of squint there is set up a correspondence 
between other than the normally corresponding points, which 
permits of single binocular vision in spite of the squint ; and 
further it is found that, if the squint is cured by operation so that 
the normally corresponding points receive the optical images of 
the same object, then at first the patient sees objects double, but 
gradually ceases to do so, reacquiring by practice the normal 
system of correspondences. These facts are clearly irreconcilable 
with the view that single vision with the two eyes depends upon 
any fixed system of anatomical connexions. 

(7) If the retina is stimulated intermittently, the rate of 
succession of the stimuli may be increased until the subject ceases 
to perceive any intermittence or flicker of the sensation. This 
rate of succession is known as flicker-point ; it varies with the 
intensity of the stimulating light ; but we may take for illustration 
a case in which flicker-point is reached when the stimulus is 
repeated twenty times a second. Now, if each retina is stimulated 
intermittently twenty times a second, but in such a way that the 
stimuli fall alternately on the two retinse, the flicker-point is not 
changed ; whereas, if the fibres from corresponding points converge 
to a common centre, flicker-point should be reached when the 
stimulus falls ten times a second on each retina ; for then the 
centre would still be stimulated twenty times a second. 

These are the principal facts which go to prove that the 
physical processes simultaneously initiated in corresponding points 
of the two retinae undergo no physical compounding or fusion ; 
and taken together they make an overwhelmingly strong proof 
that, in such a case as that of the fusion of the effects of red and 
1 For further discussion of the facts, see chap. xxv. 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 293 

blue lights applied to the two retinae, the fusion of effects (which 
undeniably occurs) is not dependent on any composition or fusion 
of the physical processes. The fusion of effects, therefore, takes 
place only in the psychical sphere. In the illustrative case we 
have considered, the two physical processes initiated by the red 
and the blue lights respectively in the two retinae of the man A, 
remain as distinct as the two physical processes initiated by the 
red and blue lights respectively in the left eye of the man A and 
in the right eye of the man B ; yet hi the one case the effect in con- 
sciousness produced by them is a single sensation of the quality 
purple in one consciousness, and in the other case they excite two 
sensations, one of quality red in the consciousness of A, and one 
of quality blue in the consciousness of B. 

The fusion of effects of simultaneous sensory stimuli to a 
unitary resultant is, then, not a physiological or physical fusion or 
composition, but a purely psychical fusion ; the unitary resultant 
exists only in the psychical sphere. Is this fact compatible with 
any form of Parallelism ? 

Any unbiased mind must, I think, answer this question in the 
negative. For it is clear that these psychical fusions of effects of 
sensory stimuli obey, or take place according to, purely psychical 
laws that have no physical counterparts ; or that, if the two sensa- 
tions of different quality really come into existence and afterwards 
fQse together producing the third quality, the fusion is a psychical 
process to which no physical process runs parallel. This fact 
appears clearly enough when we consider only the fusions that 
result in our complex sensations ; but it will appear still more 
clearly, and its full significance will be more obvious, when in a 
later chapter we deal with the higher mental processes. 

Before going on to that part of our discussion, I wish to show 
that the fact we have established is not only incompatible with 
all forms of Parallelism and therefore indirectly an evidence of 
Animism, but that it affords a more direct and positive proof of 
the truth of Animism. 

We have seen that, while most of the exponents of 
Parallelism meet this problem of the ground of the unity of 
individual consciousness with the untenable doctrine of the 
physical unity of the brain-processes that accompany individual 
consciousness, and while others ignore it completely, some 
of the most thorough of them recognize the existence of 
the problem but fail to offer any solution of it ; thus Lange and 



294 BODY AND MIND 

Paulsen (Chapter XII) frankly assert that it is an insoluble 
problem, while Professor Strong is still pondering the problem — 
" What holds consciousness together ? " 

Only one exponent of Parallelism seems to have clearly 
grasped this problem and to have grappled seriously with it, 
namely Fechner. Fechner was a clear-sighted, as well as a 
boldly original, thinker and, unlike many other philosophers, he 
had a wide knowledge of, and a great respect for, empirical facts ; 
and, though most of the evidence set forth above was not accessible 
to him, he realized clearly the fact that the brain-processes which 
are the physical correlates of any complex state of consciousness 
are a number of discrete processes taking place in various parts 
of the brain (a fact which curiously enough Lotze failed to 
recognize). In his celebrated work, " Elemente der Psycho- 
physik," he wrote " The psychically unitary and simple are 
resultants of a physical manifold, the physical multiplicity gives 
unitary or simple resultants." ^ And Fencher saw that in this 
fact lies a crucial problem for his whole psycho-physical doctrine, 
one that urgently demands some solution. The solution he pro- 
posed was his doctrine of psycho-physical continuity and dis- 
continuity. Surveying the types of nervous system, he regarded 
it as probable that in such animals as the lower arthropoda, 
whose nervous system consists of a chain of ganglia connected 
with one another only by slender bands of nerve fibres, each 
ganglion has its own separate consciousness ; and he thought it 
highly probable also that the spinal cord and perhaps the basal 
ganglia of the higher vertebrates (including man) have their own 
streams of consciousness separate from the chief or cerebral 
consciousness. And he held that empirical facts justified the view 
that, if the human cerebrum could be divided by the knife into 
two halves, each half would enjoy its separate consciousness ; and 
that, if the brains of two men could be effectively joined by a 
bridge of nervous matter, as the two halves of the human cerebrum 
are joined by the corpiis callosum, the two men would have a single 
common consciousness. It seemed, then, to him that a condition of 

^ Vol. ii. p. 526. Again, on p. 456 we read : " Dabei haben wir uns zu erinnern, 
dass nicht nur unser Allgemeinbewusstsein in jedem Momente von einem 
Systeme von Bewegungen getragen wird, sondern dass auch alia Phanomene, 
die sich als besondere vom Grunde des Allgemeinbewusstseins abheben, wenn 
schon sie fiir das Bewusstsein einfach erscheinen, docli nicht an einfachen Be- 
wegungsmomente einzelner Tlieile hiingen sondern an dem Zusammenwirken 
einer Mehrheit von Theilchen und Momenten." 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 295 

the unity of a consciousness is continuity in space of the nervous 
matter ; and that a condition of separateness of consciousnesses is 
spatial separation of their nervous bases or material aspects. But 
this is not the sole and essential condition, else every intact 
nervous system would have one consciousness only (i.e. the con- 
scious aspect of all its processes would run together to form a single 
consciousness) ; whereas each man's personal consciousness is (ac- 
cording to Fechner's doctrine) the combination of the processes of 
certain parts of his brain only (in their conscious aspect). The 
further and essential condition of the running together of lesser 
consciousnesses to form the larger consciousness of the individual 
organism is, Fechner suggests, that their material aspects shall 
form a spatially continuous system, every part of which in its 
psychical aspect rises about "the threshold of consciousness" of 
that individual. In a similar way Fechner would explain, or 
ratl\er state, the essential condition of the flowing together of the 
consciousnesses of individual men to form the larger aggregations 
of consciousness which he assumed to exist. Such a hypothetical 
larger consciousness he regarded as that of an individual of a more 
comprehensive type than the human individual, a consciousness 
which is more inclusive because its " threshold " is lower, so much 
lower that the psycho-physical processes of the inorganic matter 
which connects the bodies of human beings are of sufficient 
intensity to rise above that " threshold." 

What shall be said of this strange doctrine ? In the first 
place it must be frankly admitted that modern studies of multiple 
personality seem to lend it some support. For there is some 
reason to believe that in these cases there exists a rupture of 
functional continuity between two or more parts of one nervous 
system, each of these parts serving as the physical basis of one of 
the partial personalities. 

But there are many good reasons for rejecting this doctrine, 
(i) In the first place, the distribution in the brain of the processes 
that are the immediate correlates of consciousness is in all 
probability not such as is demanded by it ; for example, the two 
hemispheres of the cerebrum are directly connected only by the 
strands of fibres that make up the corpus callosum, and it is highly 
probable that the processes in these fibres are not immediate 
correlates of consciousness or (in Fechner's language) that their 
processes do not rise above the threshold of consciousness ; if this 
is the fact, each hemisphere is in Fechner's sense psycho-physi- 



296 BODY AND MIND 

cally discontinuous with the other, and each should therefore have 
its separate consciousness : which is certainly not normally the 
case. There are also cases on record in which the corpus callosum 
was completely lacking and which nevertheless afforded no indica- 
tion of " dual consciousness." ^ 

(2) The doctrine involves all the objectionable features of 
psychical atomism and " mental chemistry," and all the difficulties 
of the compounding of individual consciousnesses to larger wholes 
which we have noted on other pages. 

(3) The conception of the "threshold," which is fundamental 
to Fechner's whole psycho-physical scheme and especially to the 
doctrine of psycho-physical continuity, remains utterly obscure, a 
metaphor of extreme vagueness merely. The phrase " threshold of 
consciousness " possesses a misleading plausibility, which has 
secured for it a wide popularity. The consciousness, it is assumed, 
exists whether above or below the " threshold," and its being 
above the " threshold " is merely the condition of its aggregation 
in the complex whole of individual consciousness. The "thres- 
hold," above which consciousness is said to rise, must be then 
in every case the " threshold " peculiar to the individual whose 
consciousness is in question ; yet (according to the doctrine) this 
individual has no existence as such apart from the " threshold " ; 
the " threshold " is in short constitutive of the individual. It 
it must, I think, be admitted that a " threshold " pure and simple, 
regarded as the bond that holds consciousness together, is in no 
way superior, rather vastly inferior, to the conception of a soul 
as a unitary psychical being. 

(4) If we could put aside all these objections and difficulties, 
and if it could be empirically established that the condition of 
the unity of consciousness is the material continuity of brain 
matter and of the processes in it which are the immediate 
correlates of consciousness ; still the doctrine of psycho-physical 
continuity would not render in the least degree intelligible the 
fact that a unitary consciousness is correlated with a multitude of 
discrete brain-processes. The doctrine, if empirically established, 
would remain the statement of an absolutely unintelligible fact. 

(5) If the doctrine were established, it would be incompatible 
with the fundamental principal of Parallelism, the principle namely 
that every psychical process has its physical aspect. As was 
pointed out above, the fusions of sensations and other elements to 

^ See paper by Dr A. Bruce in Brain, 1889. 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 297 

form a unitary consciousness, as assumed by the doctrine, would 
remain purely psychical processes having no phenomenal or 
physical aspect ; for, as Fechner himself recognized, there are no 
corresponding fusions of the physical processes of the brain ; 
and the " threshold of consciousness," which is regarded as 
constitutive of the unitary stream of consciousness or of psychical 
individuality in general, would remain as a law or attribute or 
conditioning factor of psychical existences without parallel or 
counterpart in the physical world. 

The demonstration that the fusion of effects of simultaneous 
sensory stimuli does not take place in the nervous system thus 
forces upon us the problem of the ground of the unity of in- 
dividual consciousness in a form which brings out clearly the 
impossibility of finding any solution compatible with the funda- 
mental assumption of all forms of Parallelism ; and it forces us 
to choose between adopting the plain and straightforward solution 
offered by Animism and leaving this fundamental fact utterly 
mysterious and unintelligible. The issue is simple and direct.-^ 
When two stimuli are simultaneously applied to the sense-organs of 
any normal human being, they produce a change in his conscious- 
ness which is their combined effect or resultant. This composition 
or combination of their effects does not take place in the nervous 
system ; the two nervous processes are nowhere combined or com- 
pounded ; they remain throughout as distinct as if they occurred 
in separate brains ; and yet they produce in consciousness a single 
effect, whose nature is jointly determined by both nervous 
processes. These facts can only be rendered intelligible by 
assuming that both processes influence or act upon some one 
thing or being ; and, since this is not a material thing, it must be 
an immaterial thing. Our intellect demands this conclusion, and 
to refuse to accept it is to mistrust the human intellect in a way 
which amounts to radical Scepticism or Pyrrhonism. We cannot 
be content to say that each of the two processes generates or 
creates a sensation, which two sensations then float off to come 
together and join the stream of consciousness of that individual ; 
for, even if we could admit that sensations can exist in this isolated 
manner, the essential problem would still remain — Why do these 
two sensations come together and why do they join that particular 
stream of consciousness, rather than any other one ? The only 

^ I will ask the reader to keep in mind here the special instance of red and 
blue lights falling separately on corresponding areas of the two retinae. 



298 BODY AND MIND 

possible alternative to the hypothesis that this immaterial thing 
is an enduring psychic entity, is to assert that it is the stream of 
consciousness itself. Now to say that the cerebral processes act 
upon consciousness is a convenient and common usage ; but, if 
the statement is to be taken seriously, it implies that the stream 
of consciousness is not merely the sum of the effects of, or the 
psychical aspects of, the brain-processes, but that it has an 
independent existence, that it is itself an entity or being. And 
this would be Animism, but Animism of a peculiarly unsatisfactory 
kind.^ We should still have to assert that the stream of individual 
consciousness as it exists at any moment is not the whole of this 
immaterial being, and does not reveal its whole nature ; we 
should have to recognize that the constancy of the effects in 
consciousness produced by the cerebral processes, and their 
relative independence of the state or content of consciousness at 
the moment of the incidence of the cerebral influences, are 
evidences that the immaterial being is more than consciousness 
and is the enduring possessor of capacities of reacting upon 
cerebral influences in a number of different ways of which some 
only are realized at any moment. The psychic being is then 
more than the stream of consciousness ; and the sensory changes 
of consciousness produced by cerebral changes are only a partial 
expression of its enduring nature. And, when the effects of two 
or more sense-stimuli appear in consciousness combined to a 
common resultant, this is because the separate cerebral processes 
act upon this one being and stimulate it to react according to the 
laws of its own nature with the production of changes in the 
stream of consciousness. This psychic being, whose nature is thus 
partially expressed by the production of the unitary sensory content 
of consciousness in response to the manifold of cerebral influences, 
is that medium of composition of effects, that ground of the unity 
of consciousness and of psychical individuality, which the intellect 
demands and which cannot be found in the substance of the brain. 
The facts of the relation of sensory consciousness to cerebral 
events thus render the conception of a unitary psychic being, call 
it soul or what you will, a necessary hypothesis ; for the rejection 
of this hypothesis involves either Pyrrhonism or the acceptance 
of a confused tangle of obscure conceptions (conceptions of 
fantastic entities such as the " threshold of consciousness," or 
unattached fragments of consciousness, sensations flying about 
^ This variety of Animism is further discussed in chap. xxvi. 



THE UNITY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 299 

loose and coming together to yield up their own natures in 
creating new entities) ; and, even if the prejudice against the 
conception of a soul is so strong as to lead one to prefer to it 
this tangle of fantastic ideas, this still proves to be inconsistent 
with the fundamental principles of Parallelism. 

In view of the discussion of the following chapter it is 
important to make clear the sense in which the phrase " the 
fusion or synthesis of elementary qualities of sensation or of other 
psychical elements " may be legitimately used and will be there 
used. When we speak of the fusion of sensations we mean the 
fusion of effects in consciousness of sensory processes in the brain. 
Each sensory brain-process which is the immediate correlate of a 
change in consciousness produces a partial affection of the soul ; 
the nature of this effect, like that of all other effects, is determined 
both by the nature of that which acts and the nature of that 
which is acted upon. The total sensory content of consciousness 
at any moment is the complex reaction of the soul upon many 
such cerebral influences simultaneously affecting it as qualitatively 
distinct and spatially separate processes. The sensations or 
other psychical elements have no more a separate existence 
than have the several accelerations impressed upon a particle 
of matter by several simultaneously acting forces. The motion 
of the particle is the resultant effect of these forces upon the 
particle and may be analytically reduced to the sum of the 
several accelerations ; just so the sensory content of consciousness 
(in so far as determined by brain-processes) is the resultant of 
the incidence of these influences upon the soul, and this complex 
resultant also may be analytically exhibited as the sum of 
elements which introspection discovers. But, without a particle 
to act upon, the several forces could produce no accelerations, 
and their effects are only combined in virtue of their acting upon 
one and the same particle ; just so the brain-processes could 
produce no sensations except by acting upon the soul, and their 
effects are combined in one consciousness only in virtue of their 
acting upon one soul. 

To some reader the question of the seat of the soul in the 
body may remain a difficulty. Such I would remind that to be 
in a place means nothing but to exert action or to be effected 
by action in that place ; and, if he doubts this, I would ask him 
to attempt to attach any other clear meaning to the phrase. 
And, if this is agreed upon, it will be admitted that Lotze has 



300 BODY AND MIND 

admirably said in the following passage all that can or need be 
said on the question of the seat of the soul. "The soul stands 
in that direct interaction which has no gradation, not with the 
whole of the world, nor yet with the whole of the body, but with 
a limited number of elements ; those elements, namely, which 
are assigned in the order of things as the most direct links of 
communication in the commerce of the soul with the rest of the 
world. There is nothing against the supposition that these 
elements, on account of other objects which they have to serve, 
are distributed in space ; and that there are a number of 
separate points in the brain which form so many seats of the 
soul. Each of these would be of equal value with the rest ; at 
each of them the soul would be present with equal completeness." ^ 

Before bringing this chapter to an end, it seems necessary 
to revert to the problem presented by the cases of multiple 
personality in which there seems to be good reason to believe 
that two streams of consciousness accompany the processes of one 
brain. We seem compelled to believe that in these cases the 
brain, which normally is a single functional system of nervous 
elements, becomes divided into two systems that are functionally 
discontinuous, and that the cerebral processes which accompany 
the two streams of consciousness run their courses as two separate 
streams of cerebral processes in these two systems. 

I shall have occasion to touch upon these cases again in a 
later chapter. Here I wish merely to make the following 
remarks. If we could prove that functional continuity of the 
parts of the brain is a condition of the unity of consciousness, 
this empirical fact would be equally compatible with Parallelism 
and with Animism. The parallelist would interpret the fact by 
saying that, when the matter of the brain is divided into two or 
more functionally discontinuous systems, the psychical correlates 
of the processes of each system form a separate stream ; and the 
Animist would interpret it by saying that under these conditions 
each functional system is in relation of reciprocal action with a 
separate psychic being, just as the brains of any two men 
according to his view interact with two distinct psychic beings. 
And neither interpretation would in any real sense make the 
empirical fact intelligible ; each would be merely a special ap- 
plication of a fundamental supposition as to the ground of unity 
of consciousness involved in the general psycho-physical doctrine. 
^ " Metaphysik," Bk. iii. chap. v. 



CHAPTER XXII 
THE PSYCHO-PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 

WE are now prepared to deal with another question the 
careful consideration of which leads to results incom- 
patible with Parallelism ; namely, the question whether 
" consciousness of meaning " has any immediate correlate or 
counterpart among the brain-processes which might be regarded 
as its physical aspect, its phenomenon, or its immediate cause. 
This question is of crucial importance, for, as we have already seen, 
meaning appears as the essential link between sense-impression 
and action in all, save possibly the simplest, instances of animal 
and human behaviour. We have already touched upon the ques- 
tion in discussing the behaviour of animals and have found reasons 
to believe that actions in the control of which appreciation of 
" meaning " appears to play a role are not mechanically explicable. 
But for the completion of the argument it is necessary to examine 
directly the problem of the psycho-physics of meaning. 

The history of the treatment of meaning at the hands of 
psychologists is one of great interest ; but it must suffice here to 
point out that the association-psychology from Locke and Hume 
onwards has ignored meaning as a fact of consciousness, almost 
completely. The simple idea of Locke was a sensation, and his 
complex ideas were groups or aggregates of sensations or of the 
images of corresponding quality, and these, it was said, are what 
a man is conscious of when he thinks. That in thinking a man 
is commonly conscious of, or means, some object which is not an 
idea but something existing independently of his ideas or of 
his thinking of it, is a fundamental fact that was obscured and 
neglected from the outset by the psychology of this school. 

In spite of Locke's assertion that a man is conscious of his 
ideas, perceives them, makes them the objects of all his thought 
and reasoning, subsequent psychologists, guided largely by Hume, 
neglected more and more completely the facts of consciousness 
implied by this language, the perceiving the idea, the thinking and 

301 



302 BODY AND MIND 

reasoning about it : they made the sequence of the ideas, regarded 
as mere complexes of sensations and images, the whole of thought 
and of consciousness. It was this neglect of all that is com- 
prised in consciousness except the sensory content that made 
possible association-psychology of the cruder kind, and rendered 
plausible the attempt to explain all mental process as consisting 
merely in the kaleidoscopic shifting and sorting and compounding 
of the sensory content by the machinery of the brain. 

Yet, that, when we think or are conscious, we think of objects 
that are not identical with our ideas, that we mean and are 
conscious of meaning such objects, is an obvious and indisputable 
fact.^ And it is equally clear that the thought of an object is 
more than the having present to consciousness a picture of it 
made up of sensations or images. To appreciate the fact we 
have only to reflect that some persons, who can think as well 
as others, carry on their thinking without the use of images, 
or at least with nothing but verbal images and, at most, fragments 
of representative imagery which are so irrelevant and obscure that 
they cannot be regarded as playing any essential . part, or as con- 
stituting the thinker's consciousness of the objects of which he 
thinks. 

When, not many years ago, psychology began to be actively 
cultivated as an independent empirical science, it was inevitable that 
these facts should be brought back to light. For some time there 
prevailed a tendency to regard verbal thinking as carried on with 
no consciousness other than that of the words, this consciousness 
consisting of sensory images, the revivals of sensory impressions 
received on hearing, seeing, or speaking words. Beyond this, 
pure thinking involved no consciousness, but merely the unconscious 
operations of the cerebral machinery.^ 

Then the late William James propounded his doctrine of the 
psychic fringe. He taught that the complex of sensational 
elements, which introspection easily seizes upon and which had 
been widely regarded as the whole of the consciousness involved 
in thinking, is, as it were, constantly surrounded by, or set upon 
a background of, very obscure consciousness, which in spite of its 
obscurity is important. But this psychic fringe seems to have 
been regarded by him as composed of elements or processes of 

^ This remains true even though the subjective ideahst be in the right in 
affirming that such objects have no existence. 

2 This stage is well represented by M. Ribot's " Evolution of General Ideas." 



THE PSYCHO PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 303 

the same nature as that which it fringed, namely, sensations, and 
to be, in fact, the sensations accompanying cerebral processes that 
are in process of waning from or of waxing towards their full 
intensity. 

But, if we set aside the prejudice which arises from the fact 
that the sensory content is so easily seized by introspection, while 
all else in consciousness is so much more elusive, a prejudice 
which has been fostered by long tradition and countenanced by 
great names, it appears perfectly obvious and indisputable that on 
thinking of or being conscious of an object, especially an abstract 
or a highly general object such as virtue or ambiguity or colour 
or animal, the imagery is an altogether subordinate part of my 
total consciousness ; it appears that the essential part of my 
consciousness is the part which eludes introspection, and which 
eludes it just because it is the meaning or reference to the object, 
and because, when I turn to examine my thought or my idea of 
the object, the object to which I now refer or which I mean is no 
longer the original object, but the idea or thought of that object. 
Such introspective examination of an " idea " thus illustrates very 
well the point which I wish to bring out ; for the sensory content 
of consciousness remains unchanged or but little changed, while 
the object of my thought is entirely different — in the one case I 
mean and am conscious of the object, apple, virtue, animal, or 
what not ; in the other case, I mean and am conscious of my 
idea of the object. The same point is well brought out by 
reflexion on the experience of hearing or reading a word whose 
meaning we fail for the moment to apprehend. For the moment, the 
word is seen as so many printed letters only, and perhaps one pro- 
nounces it aloud or mentally only ; but it hal no further meaning, 
or perhaps one is filled with a sense of the absurdity of this concate- 
nation of visual or auditory impressions ; then suddenly comes 
the consciousness of its meaning, something in consciousness over 
alid above the sensory content. And it is not until this conscious- 
ness of meaning is added to the merely sensory content of 
consciousness that the word can play any significant part in a 
process of reasoning. 

Again, the same point is illustrated by reflexion upon the 
reverse experience, namely, one thinks of an object, or means and 
is conscious of meaning an object, which one can neither picture 
nor name. And, if the object is an abstract object, one seeks the 
word which will embody or convey the meaning already present 



304 BODY AND MIND 

to consciousness, perhaps rejecting one after another, saying — No, 
that does not express my meaning. 

These few examples may serve to illustrate the fact that 
meaning is the essential part of a thought or a consciousness of 
an object, and that the sensory content, whether vivid and rich 
in detail or dim and scanty, is but a subordinate part, a mere cue 
to the meaning. If we call the consciousness of an object an 
idea of it, then we must recognize that " Every idea is a concrete 
whole of sign and meaning, in which the meaning even when 
unanalysed and ' implicit ' is what is essential and prominent in 
consciousness. The sign, on the other hand, which we saw reason 
to identify with certain sensational elements in this complex 
experience is normally subordinate." ^ 

The further question arises : Is that part of consciousness 
which is meaning merely a complex of obscure waning or waxing 
sensational elements, as the doctrine of the " psychic fringe " 
implies? If it is admitted (and it must be admitted) that in all 
thought the meaning is at the focus of consciousness, then it 
follows that the psychic fringe of obscure sensory content, which 
no doubt exists, is not the meaning. It would be manifestly 
absurd, after recognizing that the clear imagery present to con- 
sciousness is not in itself meaning or the essential feature of 
conscious thought, to represent this essential part as consisting in 
obscure and vague sensory content which is admittedly present, if 
at all, only in the background of consciousness, round about, but 
not in, the field of attention. 

That meaning is an essential feature of consciousness ^ over 
and above, and of a nature different from, its sensory content 
appears still more clearly if we consider, not merely an idea of a 
simple object, but our consciousness of the meaning of a sentence 
heard or read, especially perhaps of a long German sentence in which 
the essential word which determines the meaning of the whole is 
found at the end of the sentence. In so far as the sentence is 

1 The passage is taken from an article by Mr R. F. A. Hoernle in Mind, 
N.S., No. 6i, entitled, " Image, Idea, and Meaning." The reader may be referred 
to this article for a fuller discussion of the question. 

2 The word meaning may be used in a sense different from that here given it, 
namely, it may be said that the object of the thought is the meaning of it, that, 
when I think or speak of an apple, the apple itself is the meaning of my words 
or my thoughts. That may be a legitimate usage, but throughout these pages 
I use the word meaning to denote the consciousness of meaning, or the meaning 
part of consciousness or of an idea. 



THE PSYCHO-PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 305 

understood, each word, as heard, comes to consciousness not merely 
as a famihar sound but also as a meaning ; and the meanings of 
the successive words qualify one another, until, as the last word 
is heard and its meaning comes to consciousness, the meaning of 
the whole sentence comes also to consciousness. When this happens, 
the earlier words as mere sounds, as sensory contents of conscious- 
ness, may have faded away ; and a moment later the meaning 
conveyed by the words may remain present to consciousness, 
while the words themselves are no longer present ; and the hearer 
may be unable to recall them or even, if he be a polyglot, may be 
unable to say in which of several languages the meaning was 
conveyed. And the converse of this case also is interesting ; one 
liears sometimes a sentence spoken and perceives all the words 
clearly, and yet for a moment the meaning delays, the sentence 
remains a mere string of auditory impressions or of words each 
having its seperate meaning, until suddenly the meaning of the 
whole comes to consciousness. It would be absurd to pretend 
that the meaning of the sentence is merely the sum or aggregate 
of the psychic fringes of the words, each fringe being in turn a 
complex of obscure sensations or images. The meaning of the 
sentence is present to consciousness as a unitary whole. And, as 
was said in connexion with the " telegram-argument " (Chapter 
xix. p. 268), this whole is an essential link between the sense- 
impressions made by the spoken words and the actions which the 
sentence evokes. If, then, this psychical whole, the meaning of 
the sentence, has not for its physical correlate in the brain a 
corresponding unitary whole, the fundamental principle of 
Parallelism is shattered. 

The question is so important that I must ask the reader to bear 
with me while I return to processes of a simple type, in order to 
demonstrate still more fully that there exists no unitary neural 
process correlated with meaning, that in fact meaning has no 
immediate neural correlate which can be regarded as its immediate 
cause, or its phenomenon, or of which it can be regarded as the 
psychical aspect. 

Let us consider the perception of a point of light lying in a 
certain direction. The ray from the point entering my pupil is 
brought to a focus on the retina, and there initiates a dis- 
turbance in the optic nerve, which is propagated to the cortex 
of the occipital or posterior pole of the cerebrum. As this 
excitement spreads through some chain or group of nervous 

20 



3o6 BODY AND MIND 

elements in that part of the cortex, consciousness is affected, an 
element of visual sensation is added to consciousness. If no 
further nervous process resulted from the stimulus, there would 
result no further change in consciousness. But, if my attention 
is drawn by the impression, the effect in consciousness is more 
complex and constitutes what we call the perception of a spot 
of light in a certain direction ; that is to say, the consciousness 
evoked is not a mere sensation, but is the sensation plus a certain 
relatively simple meaning which consists largely of an awareness 
of the spatial character and relations of the object. Of this 
meaning the direction of the spot is one part, and we may, for 
the sake of simplicity, consider this part of the meaning only. 
Now it is certain that the awareness of direction depends upon 
the appreciation in some sense of the position of the eyeball in 
its socket ; and that this in turn depends upon afferent impulses 
sent up to the brain along sensory nerves of the kinaesthetic 
sense. The associationist account of the process of perception 
asserts that these afferent impulses excite kinaesthetic sensations, 
and that these coalesce with the visual sensations to form the 
resultant spot-of-light-in-the-given-direction ; and a consistent 
Parallelist would assert also that the processes initiated in the 
optic nerve and in the nerves of the kinaesthetic sense respectively 
fuse somewhere in the brain to a complex resultant which is the 
physical aspect of the unitary psychical process, the perception. 
Now it is certain that these hypothetical kinaesthetic sensations can- 
not be discovered by introspection, and we have therefore no right 
to say that they come into existence. The spatial meaning of the 
percept is certainly not to be identified with any kinaesthetic 
sensations, and it is extremely improbable that there occurs any 
central fusion of the excitations of the optic and kinaesthetic 
nerves. Prof. Wundt (one of the very few who have made any 
serious attempt to work out the correlation of consciousness with 
brain-process) realizes this and offers a rather different account. 
He tells us that the kinaesthetic sensations fuse with the visual 
sensations, and, yielding up their own natures, impart to the result- 
ant formed by this fusion its spatial characters. This takes place 
according to a principle which he calls " the principle of creative 
resultants " ; the process is, he says, a creative synthesis, a psychical 
process or activity that has no parallel among the brain processes.^ 
He recognizes that all but the most rudimentary mental processes 
1 " Grundziige d. phys. Psychologie," fifth edition, vol. iii. p. 778. 



THE PSYCHO-PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 307 

involve such creative syntheses, and that the higher processes 
involve them on a very extended scale, in the form of higher 
syntheses of syntheses of lower orders ; each higher synthesis 
involving a further remove of the content of consciousness from 
its physical basis. Thus, according to Wundt, only the ultimate 
elements of consciousness have their physical correlates or aspects 
among the brain-processes ; and they are combined or synthesized 
to form new modes of consciousness by purely psychical processes 
and according to purely psychical laws that have no parallels or 
counterparts in the physical realm. And he recognizes that the 
unitary consciousness has for its physical correlate a multiplicity 
of discrete processes in the brain. This account certainly distorts 
the facts less crudely than does the more usual associationist 
account ; and, coming from one who claims to be a Parallelist 
and is usually reckoned as one of the leading exponents of 
that doctrine, it is highly significant ; for clearly the account 
is wholly inconsistent with the principles of Parallelism, and 
illustrates very well the fact that, when it is attempted to 
work out in detail the psycho-physics of even very simple 
mental processes, the principles of Parallelism cannot be carried 
through. 

But there is no justification for Wundt's assertion that the 
excitation of the kinsesthetic nerves evokes kinsesthetic sensations 
which proceed to fuse or to undergo a process of synthesis. In 
this matter of spatial perception, all the ingenuity devoted to the 
problem since Lotze enunciated his doctrine of local signs has not 
advanced us beyond that celebrated but much misrepresented 
doctrine. According to that doctrine, processes of the kind which 
in the foregoing accounts are said to excite kinaesthetic sensations 
constitute the local signs of the visual sensation ; but they are not 
said to excite kinsesthetic sensations ; rather they are said to affect 
the soul in a way which prompts it and enables it to exert its 
power of spatially ordering its visual sensations within the spatial 
system that it conceives. And this power of spatially ordering- 
the visual and other sensations is a psychical power or faculty, 
which cannot be explained or reduced to a fusing of sensations 
that in themselves have no spatial character or attribute. In the 
terminology adopted in these pages, we can only say that the 
soul responds to or reacts upon the particular manifold of sense- 
impressions by producing not merely a visual sensation, but also 
a consciousness of the spatial setting or relations of the sensation 



3o8 BODY AND MIND 

which consciousness is the meaning, or part of the total meaning, 
of the perception. 

Thus, in this very simple instance of perception, the content 
of consciousness is sensation plus a meaning, which is supplied 
by a psychical activity according to purely psychical laws (i.e. 
laws of the soul's own nature or being) in response to a given 
complex of cerebral influences. 

But now let us complicate the case ; instead of a single point 
of light, let there be four occupying the corners of a square. 
Then the perception (i.e. the consciousness of the subject at the 
moment of perceiving) has a richer spatial meaning ; there are 
not merely four sensations each in a particular direction ; rather 
the sensations with their spatial meanings are synthesized within 
a new whole which is the consciousness of the square ; a meaning 




Fig. 13. 

which is more or less rich according to the degree of geometrical 
knowledge of the subject and the degree of attention paid by him 
to the impressions. And it would be manifestly absurd to say 
that this meaning consists of the kinaesthetic sensations clustering 
round each of the visual sensations and coalescing into a larger 
mass. 

Again, let there be many points of light and let them form the 
outline of a cube drawn on the flat like the lines of figure 13. 
This time the spatial meaning is still richer than before. The 
spatial meanings of the many points are synthesized to a still 
larger and more complex psychic whole, the consciousness of a cube. 

The perception of an outline drawing of this sort presents three 
features of special interest in connexion with our topic. 

First, the size or distance of the drawing and, consequently, the 
size of the retinal image may be varied within very wide limits ; 



THE PSYCHO-PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 309 

and the drawing may be turned through any angle in the plane 
of the paper ; and the plane of the paper may be turned through 
many angular degrees ; and by combinations of these three changes 
an indefinitely great number of different combinations of retinal 
elements may be made the recipients of the stimuli ; yet, as I per- 
ceive the drawing, my consciousness of its meaning remains 
unchanged, or changes only in a manner of quite subsidiary im- 
portance ; the synthesis of the spatial relations or meanings of the 
parts still comes to consciousness as a cube. 

Secondly, though no one of the sides of the cube as drawn 
is a square or appears as a square, if looked at in isolation 
from the rest of the figure, and though all the sides may be of 
different shapes, yet when the figure is looked at as a whole, 
each side appears as a square. That is to say, the meaning of the 
whole, which is synthesized from the meanings of the parts, reacts 
upon those meanings and modifies them. 

Thirdly, the drawing of the cube may be ambiguous, so that 
it may be interpreted in different ways, i.e. two or more meanings 
may be attached to it. If drawn without perspective, it may be 
seen as a cube of which the edge a b is nearest to the eye, or as 
one of which the edge c d is nearest. Or again, the whole figure 
may be seen as a system of lines drawn on the flat ; and any one 
of these meanings may be imposed on it at will. That is to say, 
the system of retinal stimuli and of visual sensations evoked by 
them may remain unchanged, while the meaning of the whole and 
of all its parts is changed by the volition or intention of the 
observer ; by a distinct act of will he holds fast one meaning of 
the whole, and, so long as he does so, that meaning continues to 
determine the meanings of all the parts ; and then, at will, he calls 
up another meaning, which combines with the same complex of 
visual sensations and transforms the meanings of all the parts of 
the system.^ 

Suppose now that a sufficient description or definition of the 
figure is read by a geometer. The printed words stimulating his 
retina evoke a complex of sensations wholly different from those 
evoked by the drawing of the cube, yet they evoke in his con- 

^ It has been attempted to show that these changes of meaning are dependent 
upon changes of the innervations of the eye-muscles ; but observations reported 
by the author (" Physiological Factors of the Attention-process," Mind, N.S., 
vol. X.) show that, though such changes of innervation may facilitate the changes 
of meaning, and though they tend to accompany the changes of meaning, they 
are nevertheless not essential conditions of these changes. 



3IO BODY AND MIND 

sciousness the same meaning, even though he is quite incapable of 
picturing the figure in representative imagery. 

Suppose, further, that a written train of geometrical reasoning 
about the figure is read by a geometer. The words evoke in 
him the same meanings that were in the mind of him who wrote 
them down ; and these meanings, interacting with one another, lead 
him to the same conclusion or final meaning, even though the 
writer reasoned with the aid of visual symbols and the reader with 
the aid of verbal symbols only. As regards sensory content the 
consciousnesses of the two men, even during the process of reason- 
ing, were very different ; yet the essential meanings were through- 
out the same, else the same conclusion would not have been 
reached. 

Nothing perhaps could illustrate more forcibly than this instance 
the degree of independence of the sensory content possessed by 
the meaning, the complete difference of nature between them, and 
the fact that, in proportion as in mental process the meanings, the 
true thought-factors, predominate over the sensory content of con- 
sciousness, they are remote from the sensory basis and its nervous 
correlates ; all this being true in the highest degree of the conclusion 
of the train of reasoning, which is a higher synthesis of the 
meanings of the various words and images used in the process. 

The same facts might be illustrated by reference to musical 
compositions. A series of notes is struck in succession ; to the 
unmusical hearer they may come to consciousness as a series of 
auditory sensations merely ; but to the musical hearer they come to 
consciousness as a medody, a psychic whole of which the sensations 
are a subordinate part and the musical meaning the part of pre- 
dominant importance. The melody may be transposed to other 
keys, or it may be written down as a series of black marks on 
paper, and yet in each case the very different sensations evoke in 
the consciousness of the musical hearer or reader the same mean- 
ing. And that here too the meaning is independent of any par- 
ticular auditory or kinsesthetic sensations or imagery, is shown by the 
fact that one can mean a certain melody, though one may be unable 
to reproduce the notes or even the name of it ; and, if then the 
notes be struck or even only some few of them, we know at once 
— that is the melody we meant ; and under the guidance of the 
meaning we can reproduce the melody. Some persons accustomed 
to read music can appreciate the written symbols (i.e. can take 
the meaning of them) though they are incapable of humming, 



THE PSYCHO-PHYSICS OF "MEANING" 311 

singing, whistling, or imaging the notes ; they can intelligently 
criticize the music, and, if they afterwards hear it, can at once 
recognize it as the same they have read. 

That thought is essentially an interplay of meanings, and that 
these are relatively independent of the sensory cues, whether 
verbal or other, by means of which meaning is conveyed or com- 
municated or embodied, is now becoming widely recognized by 
psychologists, and of late years the results of a number of minute 
introspective studies made under experimental conditions have 
given a new support to this doctrine of " imageless thought." It 
may, in fact, be regarded as established that thought is not the 
mere sifting and sorting of aggregates of sensational elements by 
the mechanical processes of the brain which evoke these elements in 
consciousness ; and that these sensory elements and complexes are 
merely cues which evoke higher forms of psychical activity, which 
in turn bring meanings to consciousness. Meanings are, then, 
essential links between sense-impressions and the behaviour they 
evoke : not the sensations, nor any aggregate or synthesis of 
them, nor yet the physical correlates in the brain of the sensory 
content of consciousness, but these products in consciousness 
of a purely psychical activity are the factors which awaken within 
us the appropriate emotion and stir up the impulse to appropriate 
action, that psychic impulse or conation without which no action 
is initiated or sustained. 

We have seen that even the sensory content of the conscious- 
ness of an object has for its physical correlate a number of 
discrete processes in the brain which in no sense constitute a 
unitary whole. How much less, then, are we justified in assuming 
that the unitary psychic whole of sensory-content-plus-meaning 
has any physical correlate in the brain which is a unitary whole 
and which can discharge in mechanical fashion the function of 
mediating between sense-impression and bodily response ! Mean- 
ing, we conclude, plays an essential part in the determination of the 
sequence of bodily reaction on sense-impression, and meaning has 
no immediate physical correlate in the brain that could serve as its 
substitute and discharge its functions. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 

FROM the consideration of the conditions and effects of 
pleasurable and painful or disagreeable feeling, conclusions 
may be drawn incompatible with Parallelism and directly 
supporting Animism. It is necessary at the outset to ask the 
reader to avoid a confusion that is very commonly made. The 
tingling, smarting, and other allied disagreeable qualities of 
sensation that commonly result from violent stimulation of the 
nerves of the skin and other parts, and are commonly called pain- 
sensations, must not be confused with painful-feeling, which is a 
mode of consciousness distinct in nature and conditions from all 
sensations and is in a very complete and special sense the opposite 
of pleasurable feeling.^ The so-called pain-sensations have, 
except perhaps when at minimal intensity, painful or disagreeable 
feeling-tone ; but the feeling-tone is distinguishable from the quality 
of the sensation. The sensations are the simplest conditions of 
feeling ; we commonly say that each sensation-quality has its 
feeling-tone, and that this may vary from pleasurable, through 
a neutral point, to disagreeable, according to the intensity 
of the sensation. This is a crude way of stating the facts ; for 
pleasurable or disagreeable feeling qualifies the whole of con- 
sciousness and does not attach itself exclusively to any sensation 
or other distinguishable element of the stream of consciousness. 
The statement that the feeling-tone of a particular sensation is 
pleasurable, means that the presence of this sensation-quality in 
consciousness tends to give the whole of consciousness a pleasant 
feeling-tone, and that, if the sensation is prominent in conscious- 

^ In order to avoid the ambiguity of the word pain I shall follow Stout, James, 
and other authorities in using the word displeasure as a technical term for painful 
or disagreeable feeling or feeling-tone. In common speech this word is used to 
imply anger as well as disagreeable feeling ; but since a word is needed to denote 
disagreeable feeling-tone, it may justifiably be specialized for this purpose. The 
words pleasure and displeasure so understood are the equivalents of the Gei-man 
words Litst and Unhist, 

31? 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 313 

ness and its feeling-tendency is not counteracted by opposed 
tendencies, the tone of feeling will be pleasurable. When 
several sensations of pleasurable tendency are present together, 
their tendencies re-enforce one another ; and when sensations of 
opposed tendency are present together, the opposed tendencies 
partially or completely neutralize one another. Or, if the pleasur- 
able feeling tendencies be regarded as of positive sign, and the dis- 
agreeable tendencies as of negative sign, we may express the facts 
by saying that the feeling-tendencies of the various sensations 
simultaneously present to consciousness are algebraically summed, 
and, according as the resultant is of positive or negative sign, the 
feeling-tone of consciousness is pleasurable or disagreeable, or 
in other words, the individual feels pleasure or displeasure. But 
the sensations are only one class of occasions of pleasure and 
displeasure. Every form of mental activity tends to affect the 
feeling-tone of consciousness positively or negatively, and the 
stronger or the more intense the activity, the stronger is its feeling- 
tendency. In general terms it may be said that the smooth flow 
of mental process towards its proper end tends to pleasure ; the 
baffling or hindering of it by any obstruction, conflict of tendencies, 
or difficulty of any kind, tends to displeasure. And of ail such 
feeling-tendencies the law of algebraic summation holds good, 
perhaps not absolutely, but in the main and in general.^ The 
feeling-tone of consciousness at any moment is, then, the reaction 
of the subject as a whole upon all the many feeling-tendencies 
simultaneously influencing it. 

These are the elementary facts of feeling broadly stated. It 
is obvious that they raise the problem of the unity of conscious- 
ness even more urgently than does the psycho-physic of sensation, 
and in a form which is, if possible, even more difficult for Parallelism 
to cope with. They could be reconciled with any form of Parallelism 
only if some physical unity corresponding to the unity of con- 
sciousness could be discovered. Failing that, how is the genesis of 

^ It may be objected that we commonly and properly speak of disagreeable 
sensations as persisting throughout periods which in the main are pleasurable. 
Prof. Stout, in his very admirable chapter on the feeling-tone of sensation, seems 
to countenance this way of speaking when he says that a total state of conscious- 
ness may be agreeably toned " in spite of the presence of this or that disagreeable 
item " ("Manual of Psychology," vol. i. p. 231). The more accurate statement 
of the facts would seem to be that, during the period of agreeably toned conscious- 
ness, there may be present in the marginal field of consciousness sensations 
which would determine disagreeable feeling if the attention were turned to them. 



314 BODY AND MIND 

the unitary state of feeling, in the determination of which so many 
brain-processes play a part, to be accounted for on parallelistic 
principles ? We have seen that no composition of brain-processes 
to a common physical resultant occurs. Nor will the facts allow 
us to postulate a special brain centre for feeling. The physical 
correlate of the consciousness, which, as a whole, has a certain 
feeling-tone, is a multiplicity of separate processes each of which 
plays some part in determining the nature, and intensity of the 
feeling-tone ; and these processes may occur in very many 
different and widely separated parts of the brain. 

The impossibility of reconciling the facts with Parallelism 
appears most clearly if we consider some instances of psychical 
fusion or synthesis. Let us take first the simplest possible case, 
that of fusion of effects of two simple sensory stimuli ; and we 
may take the case of the stimulation of corresponding areas of 
the two retinae by red and blue lights respectively, which we dis- 
cussed in the foregoing chapter. A certain subject finds, let us 
suppose, that, on stimulation of the right eye with the red light, 
the resulting sensation of red quality is pleasing, and also that, 
on stimulation of the left eye with blue light, the sensation of blue 
quality is pleasing ; but on stimulation with red and blue lights 
simultaneously he finds the purple quality of the resulting sensa- 
tion to be displeasing. We have shown in the foregoing chapter 
that the physical correlate of the sensation of purple quality is 
two separate processes in the brain ; when they occur successively 
their sensory effects, the sensations of red and blue qualities, are 
pleasing ; when they occur simultaneously, their common sensory 
effect, the sensation of purple quality, is displeasing. Hence the 
sensation itself, and not its two separate physical correlates, is the 
condition or cause of the unpleasant feeling ; or, in other words, 
the feeling-tone is a purely psychical reaction upon the sensation 
of particular quality and has no immediate physical correlate. 

Again, two qualities of visual sensation which, when experienced 
successively, are pleasing, may be found displeasing, if simultaneously 
present to consciousness in spatial separation ; or, on the other 
hand, the spatial juxtaposition of two colours which in themselves 
are indifferent or but little pleasing may produce a very pleasing 
effect. In such cases the sesthetic effect depends upon our 
attending to both areas as parts of one whole. And it is^ 
especially significant that the same two colours in spatial juxta- 
position may give a pleasing or a displeasing effect, according to 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 315 

the manner of their distribution ; the combination may be pleasing, 
if the two colours are distributed in such a way as to imply a 
contrast and a separation of the differently coloured parts of the 
surface ; and the same combination may be displeasing, if the 
colours are distributed in a way that implies their inherence in a 
single object. That is to say, the aesthetic effect is not determined 
by the parts independently, but depends upon the consciousness 
of the meaning of the whole. 

Now let us turn to a rather more complicated instance, that 
of the pleasure we feel on hearing a melody, or on seeing a 
harmoniously coloured surface of beautifully shaped design or 
pattern. In such circumstances the pleasure we feel is not wholly 
conditioned by the qualities of the sensations ; though these, if in 
themselves pleasing, contribute their share towards the result. It 
is due in chief part to the relating synthetic activity by which the 
parts, the successive notes (or the several areas of colour) are 
combined in one harmonious whole, the melody (or the pattern). 
That is to say, the aesthetic pleasure is not determined by the 
mere co-existence or sequence of sensations in themselves pleasing ; 
for it is only in so far as we become aware of, or apprehend, the 
harmonious relations between the parts as parts of the whole, 
that the aesthetic pleasure proper is added to the purely sensuous 
pleasure determined by the feeling-tendencies of the several 
sensations. This we see clearly, if we reflect that the same 
tones (or the same colours) may be grouped in such orders 
that the apprehension of their inharmonious relations to one 
another, as parts of the whole, determines feeling-tone strongly 
in the direction of displeasure ; then the feeling-tendencies of the 
several sensations cannot make themselves felt and the total effect 
is disagreeable. The aesthetic pleasure arises, then, from the 
synthetic psychical activity by which the sensory elements are 
combined to form an " object of a higher order," rather than from 
the mere complex or series of sensations ; and, as we have seen, this 
synthetic activity has no immediate correlate in the physical order. 

The same conclusion thrusts itself still more forcibly upon us 
when we consider higher forms of aesthetic appreciation, such, for 
.example, as that of Mozart on mentally contemplating a musical 
composition just achieved. According to Mozart's own account, 
he had, at the moment of completing the composition, the whole 
of it present to his mind. This must have been a moment at 
which the synthetic activity attained a rare degree of intensity 



3i6 BODY AND MIND j 

and untroubled success, bringing the musical meaning of the 
whole to consciousness ; and, as Mozart tells us, the experience 
was intensely pleasurable.^ 

Or consider the conditions of the pleasure we find in reading 
a poem, say Wordsworth's "Solitary Reaper." For those who 
visualize vividly the scene depicted, the pleasing effect depends 
no doubt, in part, upon the pleasing imagery evoked by the words ; 
but this source of pleasure is in itself extremely complex, and the 
pleasure depends far more on the meaning of the imagery than 
on the qualities of the sensory contents or on the harmony of 
their composition. How much of the charm of the whole depends 
upon the " loneness " of the girl, on the subtle awakening in us of a 
romantic interest in her personality, on the suggestion of a wealth i 
of unknown possibilities, beauties of person and character, set 
upon a background of wild nature ! How much, too, upon the 
suggestion of the intangibility, the delicateness, and the unreality, t 
one might almost sa}^ of the whole impression, which a single '■' 
word or gesture might have marred ! How much upon the ^ 
sudden carrying of the mind to far-off scenes ! How much to r, 
the music of the words! How much to the unity and distinct- 
ness of the whole impression ! The sources of the pleasure are 
thousandfold, and the balance of them different for every reader. 
But, for all who keenly appreciate the poem, the play of meanings 
predominates vastly over the sensuous content of consciousness i 
in determining the pleasure we feel. And in poems of a more 
reflective kind, such, for example, as the " Lines composed above 
Tmtern Abbey," the play of highly abstract meanings predominates 
still more. In such cases the sensory contents, the mere words 
and the imagery they evoke, play a quite subordinate part 

If the conditions of pleasure and displeasure are incapable of 
bemg stated in terms of Parallelism, the consideration of their 
effects points just as strongly to a conclusion incompatible with 
that doctrine ; for we find that in ourselves and throughout the 
scale of animal life feelings of pleasure and displeasure seem to 
guide and control in some degree the course of mental process 

' I cite (after Prof. James) the following passage : " Even when it is a 
long piece .1 can see the whole of it at a single glance in my mind, as if it 
were a. beautiful painting or a handsome human being ; in which way I .do not 
hear it m my imagination at all as a succession-the' way it must come later- 
but all at once, as it were. It is a rare feast ! All the'inventing and making 
goes on in me as in a beautiful, strong dream. But the best of all is the hearing 
01 it all at once." ^ 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 317 

and, with it, the course of the brain-processes ; pleasure seems to 
promote and sustain the mental process which it accompanies or 
qualifies, and seems to fix traces of it in the brain, so that it is 
more readily repeated ; disagreeable feeling seems always to check 
or turn aside the course of the mental activity which it accom- 
panies, and to diminish the tendency to repetition of the process. 

Let us glance at some instances. It is generally recognized 
that objects which please us hold the attention more strongly 
than those to which we are indifferent or which are disagreeable 
to us ; that when, for example, we perceive a melody or a design, 
say the pattern of a wall-paper, our attention is held by it and 
tends the more strongly to dwell upon it spontaneously or invol- 
untarily the greater the pleasure or aesthetic satisfaction we derive 
from it. It is equally indisputable that we tend to remember the 
object, and to be able to reproduce or represent it, more faithfully 
the more pleasing it is ; presumably just because of the more 
effective and prolonged attention given to it at the moment of 
perception ; for example, after an evening at the opera, we 
remember best the melodies that we found most pleasing. 

Now, we have seen in the foregoing pages that these " objects 
of higher orders " which yield us these eesthetic satisfactions are 
constructed by our mental activity ; that the pleasure depends 
upon this synthesis of the parts to a unitary whole in conscious- 
ness ; and that this synthesis and this unitary whole and the 
resulting pleasurable feeling-tone of consciousness are purely 
psychical facts that have no immediate correlates among the 
brain-processes. If this conclusion is valid, and I see no escape 
from it, then it follows that the feeling itself, and not any 
physical correlate, must be regarded as sustaining and intensify 
our attention. 

Again, pleasurable or disagreeable feeling evoked by " an 
object of a higher order " of this kind, or in any other way, seems 
to play an effective part in determining the course of trains of 
association, more particularly the relatively passive train of 
associative reproduction that we call reverie. When the feeling- 
tone of consciousness is pleasurable, ideas of similar feeling-tone 
tend to predominate ; and similarly, when consciousness is dis- 
agreeably toned, whether owing to organic disorder or to aesthetic- 
ally displeasing surroundings or to the baffling of intellectual 
effort, disagreeably toned ideas tend to predominate in the train 
of reverie. 



3i8 BODY AND MIND 

Feeling seems also to exert a powerful influence upon the 
organic functions. Music or other pleasures of the higher aesthetic 
and intellectual orders can drive away pain, improve digestion, 
and benefit the health generally. Yet the pleasurable feeling 
arising from these activities is a purely psychical fact without 
physical correlate.^ 

The consideration of the processes of acquisition of new 
powers of movement, of new modes of bodily reaction, and of 
dexterity or skill of every kind, points to the same conclusion. 
There can be no doubt that such processes of acquisition involve 
the setting up of nervous habits, and that this means the establish- 
ment of neural associations or paths of diminished resistance 
between groups of neurons. The nervous system contains a 
number of innately or hereditarily organized systems of motor 
neurons ; such a system consists of a number of cells so 
intimately connected that excitement transmitted to any part at 
once spreads through the whole system, and connected also in 
such a way that the excitement of the system issues along motor 
nerves to a synergic group of muscles, i.e. one whose contractions 
produce an orderly movement of some part of the body. These 
innately co-ordinated movements constitute, as Lotze said, an 
alphabet of movement ; or perhaps they are more closely 
analogous to a vocabulary. The contraction of each muscle corre- 
sponds to a single letter of the alphabet, that of any synergic group 
to a word. The processes of acquisition of new modes of bodily 
response to impressions are of two main types: (i) the learning 
to respond to a particular sense-impression with one or other 
of the words of the vocabulary of movement, or, in other words, 
the association of one of these innately co-ordinated movements 
with a sense-impression of a kind with which it is not innately 
associated ; this procfess may be called the adaptation of move- 
ment : (2) the other mode of learning is the process of acquisition 
of skill, and consists in the combining of the words of the 
vocabulary to form sentences, i.e. in learning to combine the simple 
synergic contractions into more complex conjunctions and series. 

^ It seems possible to suggest a plausible account of the way in which these 
effects are produced. We may suppose that when for any reason the feeling- 
tone of consciousness is predominantly pleasurable (or disagreeable), all psycho- 
physical processes of opposed feeling tendency are repressed, just because their 
feeling tendency is incongruous with, and conflicts with, and is overpowered by, 
the dominating feeling-tendencies ; and this repression may be supposed to 
affect the processes of incongruous feeUng-tendency not only in so far as they 
are conscious, but also their cerebral concomitants. 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 319 

Under the former head, that of adaptation of movement or of 
behaviour, fall most instances of modification of animal behaviour 
through experience, and notably such classical instances as the 
burnt child who withholds his finger from the candle-flame, and 
Professor Lloyd Morgan's chicks that learnt to refuse certain dis- 
agreeably-tasting caterpillars after one or two attempts to eat 
them. I will not dwell upon these, but will only remark in 
passing that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to suggest 
any satisfactory explanation of the results in terms of neural 
structure and processes only. 

The best instances for our present purpose are such instances 
of animal learning as have been carefully studied by Mr 
Thorndike ^ and by many others who have adopted and extended 
his methods. A single instance, typical of many, may suffice. 
A hungry cat is confined in a cage, the door of which is kept 
closed by some latch that is liable to be opened by the cat 
in the course of its struggles to escape. The cat, stimulated by 
the sight of food placed near the cage, makes a great variety of 
random movements, clawing, scratching, and squeezing in all parts 
of the cage ; it runs through its vocabulary of movement without 
the least indication that it appreciates the presence of a door, or 
of a latch by moving which the door may be opened. Sooner or 
later in the course of these random movements, the latch is moved 
by happy accident and the cat escapes to enjoy the food. Now 
it is found that in nearly all cases, if the cat is put back in the 
same cage on many successive occasions, it gradually learns to 
escape more and more quickly ; until eventually it goes straight 
to the latch and makes the necessary movement. This is the 
process of adaptation of movement by random trial and error ; 
by processes of this kind much of the adaptation of animal 
behaviour is effected. 

It might seem at first sight that the slow gradual character of 
the process of adaptation shows it to be a purely mechanical 
process, namely, the setting up, by simple repetition of the liberat- 
ing movement made in a certain part of the cage, of an association 
between that movement and the sense-impression received from 
that part of the cage. And this is the explanation of such 
processes commonly offered by unthinking physiologists. Now, 
it is no doubt true that a habit is gradually formed, a neural 

1 " Animal Intelligence." Monograph supplement to the "Psychological 
Review," vol. ii. No. 4. 



320 BODY AND MIND 

association between the visual impression of one part of the cage 
and the appropriate movement, or rather between the neural bases 
of these two things. 

But the essential problem remains — Why did this particular 
movement become associated with this particular sense-impression ? 
The law of the formation of neural associations, as usually stated, 
throws no light on the problem ; for it affirms merely that when 
two processes, a and b, occur simultaneously or in immediate 
succession, the recurrence of a tends to bring about the recurrence 
of b. Now, the cat makes many other movements than the 
successful one in sequence upon the sense-impressions received 
both from this part of the cage and from other parts ; and no doubt 
many of these various sequences of movements on sense-impressions 
(especially those that were often repeated in the course of the 
cat's random efforts) become in some degree habitual. But if so, 
the fact still remains that, out of all these many sequences of 
movements on sense-impressions, one becomes an effective habit 
much more rapidly than all the others ; so that it takes precedence 
of all others, and, after many repetitions of the escape, is called 
into play whenever the cat casts his glance around the walls of 
his cage. That is the fact which is not explained by the law of 
association as stated above. 

Mr Thorndike, in discussing the results of his experiments, 
says that the pleasure of escape, attending and following upon 
the successful movement, stamps in this particular sensory-motor 
association, while the pain (or displeasure) of failure tends to 
stamp out all other associations. We need not lay stress on the 
stamping out, because that is not clearly proved ; but the " stamping 
in " of the successful association, the more rapid increase of its 
effectiveness relatively to all other associations of movement with 
sense-impression, can only be attributed to the pleasure or 
satisfaction of success. 

Now let us consider a simple instance of acquirement of skill, 
and let us take the case of the young child learning to reach out 
after, and to seize, seen objects. 

The visual impression of an object near at hand provokes in 
the young child that has not yet acquired this power random 
movements directed very roughly only (if at all) towards the object. 
When in the course of these movements the palm of the hand is 
brought in contact with the object, the fingers close upon it and 
carry it to the mouth. On repetition of these efforts, success is 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 321 

achieved more and more rapidly and effectively ; each success 
brings an increase of facility, which means an increase of 
effectiveness of the neural association between the visual im- 
pression made by an object at a particular distance and the 
several motor mechanisms by which the appropriate movement 
of the hand is carried out. If the law of association as stated 
above expressed fully the facts, and if the formation of the 
neural associations were a purely physical process consisting merely 
in the passage of the neural impulse from one cell-system to 
another, we should expect to find that all the random movements 
made by the hand, while the eyes are directed upon an object in a 
particular position, should become habitual in the same degree, or 
rather in proportion to the frequency of their repetition ; therefore, 
the successful movement of the hand should become associated 
with that particular position of the eyes less rapidly than 
other of the random movements ; for at each attempt to seize 
an object in that position, some of the random movements 
may be repeated several or many times, whereas the success- 
ful movement brings the series to an end and is made only 
once. 

It is clear, therefore, that, for the explanation of the fact that 
the successful movement alone becomes an established habit or 
automatic process, some other factor must be taken into account ; 
and this other factor seems to be the feeling-tone of consciousness, 
the pleasure of success and the displeasure of failure. Professor 
Stout has concisely expressed the facts in the following generalized 
statement : " Lines of action, if and so far as they are unsuccessful, 
tend to be discontinued or varied ; and those which prove success- 
ful, to be maintained. There is a constant tendency to persist in 
those movements and motor attitudes which yield satisfactory 
experiences, and to renew them when similar conditions recur ; 
on the other hand, those movements and attitudes which yield 
unsatisfactory experiences tend to be discontinued at the time of 
their occurrence, and to be suppressed on subsequent similar 
occasions." That is a more precise and guarded statement of 
the facts which Mr Thorndike expresses by saying that pleasure 
stamps in and pain stamps out the neural associations. It will 
be noticed that Professor Stout cautiously avoids in this passage 
any attribution of causal efficacy to the feelings themselves ; for 
Professor Stout is a Parallelist, and it is wellnigh impossible to 
admit the efficacy of feeling in checking or promoting mental 
21 



322 BODY AND MIND 

process, without admitting the influence of psychical process upon 
brain-process. 

The late Professor James, contemplating the same facts, wrote 
as follows : " Let one try as one will to represent the cerebral 
activity in exclusively mechanical terms, I, for one, find it quite 
impossible to enumerate what seem to be the facts and yet to 
make no mention of the psychic side which they possess. How- 
ever it be with other drainage currents and discharges, the 
drainage currents and discharges of the brain are not purely 
physical facts. They are psycho-physical facts, and the spiritual 
quality of them seems a co-determinant of their mechanical 
effectiveness. If the mechanical activities in a cell, as they 
increase, give pleasure, they seem to increase all the more rapidly 
for that fact ; if they give displeasure, the displeasure seems to 
damp the activities. The psychic side of the phenomenon thus 
seems, somewhat like the applause or hissing at a spectacle, to be 
an encouraging or adverse comment on what the machinery 
brings forth. The soul presents nothing herself, creates nothing, 
is at the mercy of the material forces for all possibilities, but 
amongst these possibilities she selects, and by re-enforcing one 
and checking others, she figures not as an ' epiphenomenon,' but 
as something from which the play gets moral support." ^ 

That pleasure and displeasure play effective parts in sustaining 
and repressing or diverting the course of mental activity is so 
clearly implied by the facts that it would be absurd to deny it ;^ 
but the consistent Parallelist, while admitting that a causal 
relation is implied, maintains that, when we consider these facts 
from the side of brain-processes, we have to postulate some two 
kinds of neural process, or some two peculiarities of nervous 
process in general, which are the neural correlates of pleasure and 
displeasure and which are the causes of those effects in the brain 
that seem to be due to the feelings themselves. Many attempts 
have been made to formulate the nature of these hypothetical 
neural counterparts of pleasure and displeasure, yet no one has 
succeeded in suggesting any tenable hypothesis of this kind.^ 

^ " Principles of Psychology," vol. ii. p. 583. 

^ Thus, e.g. Prof. Stout affirms that " the disagreeable sensations positively 
disorder and enfeeble thought and action, when the endeavour is made to think 
or act " ("Manual of Psychology," vol. i. p. 231). 

^ It is unnecessary for me to examine here the many attempts of the kind, 
because Mr H. R. Marshall, in an acute and learned work (" Pain, Pleasure and 
iEsthetics," London, 1S94), has shown that none of the suggestions previously 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 323 

Without attempting to exhibit the insuperable difficulties which 
all such attempts must encounter, I will merely point out that 
this failure supports the conclusion reached in the first part of this 
chapter, namely, that the immediate conditions of feeling-tone 
are purely psychical and that feeling-tone has no immediate 
physical correlate in the same sense that the sensations have. 
If this is the case, it follows that pleasure and displeasure 
themselves somehow exert an influence over the course of 
cerebral process. But finally to establish a negative is always 
a matter of great difficulty, and therefore the following reasoning, 
which reaches the same conclusion by a different route, affords a 
welcome confirmation of it. 

The part played by pleasure and displeasure in determining 
mental process, the law of subjective selection, may be concisely 
stated as follows. Pleasure determines appetition, displeasure 
determines aversion ; the words appetition and aversion being 
used in the widest sense to denote rnodes of mental and bodily 
action that make respectively for and against the continuance and 
repetition of any particular experience. 

The problem before us, then, is — Are these opposed forms of 

made can be accepted, and Prof. Stout has shown (" Manual," Bk. ii., chap, viii,), 
conclusively as it seems to me, that Mr Marshall's own hypothesis is untenable. 

More recently Prof . Max Meyer (" Psychological Review," 1908, " Pleasantness 
and Unpleasantness ") has exhibited the unsatisfactory nature of the later 
suggestions, and has in turn put forward a novel one, namely, that " the correlate 
of pleasantness and unpleasantness is the increase or decrease of the intensity 
of a previously constant current [of nervous energy in the brain], if the increase 
or decrease is caused by a force acting at a point other than the point of sensory 
stimulation." I find myself in close agreement with most of Prof. Meyer's 
preUminary discussion, but his hypothesis seems to me, for many reasons, no 
more tenable than any of its predecessors. It will suffice to mention two such 
reasons : (i) it is incredible that a nervous current should discriminate so nicely 
between the remote causes of the increase or decrease of its intensity ; (2) accord- 
ing to the author's showing, the hypothesis involves the consequences that the 
more intellectual processes have more intense feeling-tone than the less intellectual, 
that only man and the highest of the animals are capable of pleasure and dis- 
pleasure, and that adults experience pleasure and displeasure in greater intensity 
than children. Prof. Meyer does not hesitate to maintain that these conse- 
quences are in harmony with the facts. But general experience will surely 
affirm that the displeasure of such low-level experiences as toothache, sea-sick- 
ness, migraine, giddiness, and instinctive terror, vastly exceeds in intensity 
the displeasures of the intellect, and that the pleasures also of the organic life, 
in those in whom the tides of life run strongly, exceed in mere intensity those 
of the intellect. The superiority of the higher pleasures is to be found not in 
their intensity, but in moral considerations and in the fact that they are capable 
of rational cultivation. 



324 BODY AND MIND 

bodily activity, in which appetition and aversion find expression, 
determined by pleasure and displeasure themselves, or by some 
two hypothetical specific forms of neural process which are their 
physical correlates ? 

Now, it is generally recognized that, in the main, pleasant 
experiences are beneficial to the organism and unpleasant ex- 
periences hurtful. The principle seems to be almost strictly true 
for the animals ; and, though in its application to man its truth 
is partly obscured by the complexities of his mental life and 
social relations and by the frequent perversions of the tastes 
natural to him, yet there can be no doubt that, in the main, it 
holds good for man also. If, then, pleasure and displeasure are 
themselves the determinants of movements of appetition and 
avoidance, we can understand how this general agreement between 
the beneficial and the pleasurable and between the hurtful and the 
disagreeable has been brought about by natural selection. For 
all animals that varied in the direction of finding hurtful influences 
pleasant would have sought them and consequently would have 
been heavily handicapped in the struggle for existence ; while all 
that varied in the direction of finding beneficial influences pleasant 
would have sought them and have been correspondingly benefited. 
And, if we adopt the parallelist assumption that two neural 
processes, the physical correlates of pleasure and displeasure 
(which we may call x and y), are the determinants of appetition 
and aversion, then the correlation throughout the animal world of 
X with the beneficial, and of y with the hurtful, bodily affections 
follows in the same way from the Darwinian principles. But 
that X should express itself in consciousness as pleasure and y as 
displeasure would remain an insoluble problem. For the opposi- 
tion between pleasure and displeasure is the most profoundly 
significant we can imagine, and this correlation of pleasure with 
X (the neural process that determines appetition), and of dis- 
pleasure with y (the process that determines avoidance), cannot be 
regarded as the result of happy accident. That there remains a 
real problem here we may see if we suppose the correlation 
reversed, pleasure correlated with y and displeasure with x. For 
then natural selection would have evolved an animal world all 
members of which would have constantly sought those things 
that were beneficial but unpleasant, would have avoided the things 
that were hurtful but pleasant, and would have experienced a 
great predominance of displeasure over pleasure. Such a state 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 325 

of things would seem to us profoundly irrational and absurd. If 
pleasure and displeasure differed only as two qualities of sensa- 
tion differ, say red and blue, there would be no such problem ; 
for it would seem just as intelligible that all animals should 
seek to prolong and to repeat all experience qualified by 
blueness, and to avoid all qualified by redness, as that the 
reverse should be the rule. 

The parallelist assumption, then, leaves us with this problem, 
on which biological principles can throw no light ; and we shall 
be driven to suppose that the correlations which obtain between 
pleasure and bodily appetition and between displeasure and bodily 
avoidance have been imposed by beneficient divine power at some 
stage of the process of organic evolution. But this supposition 
would be incompatible with the principles that Parallelism holds 
most dear, especially the principles of continuity of evolution and 
of the universal sway of mechanical principles in nature. 

In short, it is only if feeling itself, and not its hypothetical 
neural correlates, directs bodily movement that the facts are in 
intelligible accordance with the principles of organic evolution. 
We are, in fact, compelled to choose between two alternatives, 
both of which are incompatible with the fundamental tenets of 
Parallelism. We may believe, then, that appetition and aversion 
are rooted in our psychical nature, and that the facts of subjective 
selection are the expressions of a fundamental law of that nature, 
a law which has no counterpart among the laws of the physical 
world. And if it be asked — Are we then to believe that the feelings 
themselves act directly upon the cerebral processes ? the answer 
must be, I think — No ; they act only indirectly, namely, by exciting 
conation or psychical effort, for conation is essentially the putting 
forth of psychical power to modify the course of physical events. 

Conation or Will 

A few words must be added to bring together what has been 
said or implied of conation on earlier pages. Following Dr Stout 
and other high authorities, I use the word conation as the most 
general term denoting all the active or striving side of our nature, 
as the equivalent of will in its widest sense, as comprehending 
desire, impulse, craving, appetite, wishing, and willing. ^ We 

1 For a statement of my views on the relation of developed volition to simpler 
modes of conation I may refer the reader to my " Introduction to Social Psycho- 
logy," London, 190S. 



326 BODY AND MIND 

arrive at the conception of conation in two ways ; ( i ) by the 
observation of the outward behaviour of men and animals ; 
(2) by introspection. In consciousness conation expresses itself 
in so obscure a fashion that it has long been and still is a matter 
of dispute whether it really constitutes a specific mode of being 
conscious, Dr Stout seems to me to have fully established the 
affirmative answer to this question ^ ; but it does not seem to me 
one of primary importance from the point of view of the psycho- 
physical problem. 

The principal points of importance have been indicated in 
Chapter XIX. ; but on two heads something remains to be said ; 
First, I would draw attention to the concentration of the energy of 
the whole organism in support of the conative effort, when such 
concentration is required. If the circumstances are such as to- 
render the end of the conative process attainable only by long sus- 
tained effort, this concentrated output of the energies of the whole 
organism may go so far as to induce complete exhaustion. This 
we see illustrated by some of the instinctive efforts of animals ; as 
when birds, under the driving power of the migratory impulse, con- 
tinue their flight until utterly exhausted. But it is illustrated most 
strikingly by human behaviour in those rare instances in which 
circumstances and character conspire to produce the most 
magnificent displays of sustained volition ; efforts so incredibly 
great and prolonged that only the adjective superhuman seems 
adequately to describe them ; efforts which, when they cease to be 
demanded by the circumstances, leave the organism depleted of 
energy.^ All this is utterly incompatible with the view of the 
animal organism necessarily held by the Parallelist, namely, the 
view that it is merely a bundle of cunningly contrived mechanisms 
bound up together, and mechanically connected in a way that 
effects certain co-operations and reciprocal interferences. For 
each of these mechanisms contains within itself its stores of 
potential energy in chemical form, and draws new stores of 
such energy from the common source of supply, the blood. But 
the facts of the order I refer to show that the energies of these 
various mechanisms are capable of being drawn upon to contribute 
towards the attainment of one particular end ; they illustrate in 
the most striking manner that subordination of the parts to the 

^ See especially his paper on " Conation " in the British Journal of Psychology, 
vol. i. 

^ In this connexion I would refer the reader to an article by William James, 
on " The Energies of Men," in the Philosophical Review, 1907. 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 327 

whole which is the essence of organic unity and which is 
incapable of being accounted for on purely mechanical principles. 

Another aspect of conative process on which I wish to add 
to what has been said in Chapter XIX. is the persistence of the 
conative process, its persistent self-direction towards its end in 
spite of obstacles and deflecting forces. Psychologists have only 
recently begun to gain some insight into the great extent of the 
influence of persistent conative tendencies upon the course of mental 
process and of behaviour. The persistence of the effect of a 
resolution of the will, even though the main stream of conscious- 
ness is turned in other directions, is a fact of great importance, 
frequently illustrated in the course of daily life. A very simple 
instance is the persistent operation of the intention to go on 
walking. The mind may be actively engaged in thought or 
conversation, but, except at moments of unusual concentration of 
thought, the intention to go on walking continues to operate. 
It is commonly said that the movement of the legs goes on 
automatically, and by this it is usually implied that their 
movement is a purely reflex mechanical process ; but the continu- 
ance of their movement is in reality a conative process dependent 
upon the initial intention. The same is true of the maintenance 
of particular attitudes and demeanours, of the intention or resolution 
to preserve a grave or a cheerful expression, to speak slowly, to 
hold up one's head, to read or write quickly ; in all such cases 
we succeed in some degree (perhaps succeed eventually in 
modifying old habits) only in virtue of the fact that the intention 
once formed continues to operate in some degree when no longer 
present to consciousness. 

The same fact is illustrated more strikingly by the long- 
distance cyclist who falls asleep and yet continues to pedal ; by 
the woman who continues to knit while actively conversing or 
reading ; by the sleeper who wakens early in virtue of a resolution 
taken before going to bed. 

But the most striking illustrations of the persistent operation 
of conative tendencies, even when the subject is unaware of their 
existence, have been brought to light by the recent psycho- 
pathological investigations of the school of Prof. Freud of Vienna.^ 

^ Prof. Freud's ideas are embodied in a number of works of which the most 
important are perhaps " Die Traumdeutung," " Der Witz," and " Die Psycho- 
pathologie des Alltagsleben." One only, namely " Studies of Hysteria," has 
been translated into English. The English reader may find several good expos 
tions of these ideas in American Journal of Psychology, 1910. 



328 BODY AND MIND 

The ideas of Prof. Freud are at present the subject of lively 
controversy, and opinions are widely divided as to their value as a 
contribution to medical science ; but the success of Freud's thera- 
peutic methods in his own hands and in those of a numerous and 
rapidly increasing band of disciples proves that there is a large basis 
of truth in his doctrines. The discovery to which I would draw 
attention in the present connexion is that strong conative 
tendencies, whose operation in the mind is for any reason 
suppressed or repressed by a voluntary effort (or by reason of 
their incompatibility with the organized system of conative 
tendencies which constitutes the character of the individual), may 
continue, not merely for hours and days, but for weeks, months, 
and years, to exert a strong influence, which manifests itself 
indirectly in consciousness and in behaviour. Dreams seem in 
some cases (Freud says in all cases) to be the indirect and 
perverted and partial expression of such tendencies ; and the 
symptoms, both subjective and objective, of hysteria seem to be 
traceable in many cases to the subconscious operation of such 
repressed conative tendencies. 

I have no space to dwell upon these most interesting dis- 
coveries. I wish only to insist that the peculiar nature of conative 
process is illustrated by a great body of facts which reveal it as 
something that cannot be mechanically conceived, something of 
an order entirely different from the working of any mechanism ; 
a self-sustaining and self-directing activity, to which no mechanical 
process is even remotely analogous. 

It is to be remarked also that the conditions of conation are 
psychical, and that in many cases these psychical conditions are 
such as have no immediate correlates among the brain - pro- 
cesses. It is generally held that pleasure excites conation ; how- 
ever that may be, it is at least clear that both pleasure and 
displeasure modify conation, pleasure sustaining and intensifying 
it, displeasure diverting or depressing it ; and, as we have seen, 
these feelings (in all cases, as I have argued, but most evidently 
in the case of those arising out of the higher forms of esthetic 
appreciation) cannot be supposed to have any immediate physical 
correlates. 

But the great springs of conative energy are the instincts ; 
and we have seen that, even in the case of the purely instinctive 
activity of animals, it seems to be impossible to describe or 
conceive the conditions that evoke instinctive activity in purely 



PLEASURE, PAIN, AND CONATION 329 

mechanical terms ; we have seen, in fact, how an intellectual 
factor, namely, the consciousness of meaning, seems to be an 
essential link between sense impression and instinctive reaction. 
In man also instinctive or innate specific tendencies are the great 
springs of conative energy ; ^ and in him they are commonly 
brought into play by intellectual processes of a high degree of 
complexity and abstraction, the essential condition of the excite- 
ment of a conative tendency being in many cases an idea of 
which the meaning is achieved only by a psychical synthesis of 
other meanings, and of which the sensory content with its physical 
correlates is a very subordinate part. 

Now objects have value for us in proportion as they excite our 
conative tendencies ; our consciousness of their value, positive or 
negative, is our consciousness of the strength of the conation they 
awake in us. Hence consciousness -of value, like consciousness of 
meaning, is a mode of consciousness which has no counterpart in 
the physical sphere ; value, like meaning, is a purely psychical 
fact. The impossibility of expressing values in terms of brain- 
processes is recognized by some Parallelists, who, therefore, like 
Prof Miinsterberg, propose to escape the difficulty for Parallelism 
by sundering the whole world known to us into two worlds that 
have nothing in common, a physical world of mechanical sequences 
and a world of values. But this method of escaping the difficulties 
of Parallelism cannot be admitted to be any more legitimate than 
any of the other ways of sundering experience into unrelated parts, 
some of which we have noted in earlier chapters.^ 

^ See my " Introduction to Social Psychology." 

- I add here a note reporting the result of experiments which are still in pro- 
gress at the time of going to press, a result which illustrates in a striking manner 
the role of conation. The experiments consist in learning series of nonsense 
syllables in the manner described in the following chapter. In one series of 
experiments the subject maintains an attitude as completely passive as possible, 
consistent with regularly accentuated repetition of the syllables. In a parallel 
series of experiments he makes an effort of the will to learn and retain the 
syllable-rows as rapidly as possible. It appears that in the former series he 
requires from three to four times as many repetitions as in the latter series, in 
order to be able to repeat the syllables " by heart." Yet in all outward respects 
the behaviour of the subject is the same during the process of learning. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
xMEMORY 

LOOKED at broadly from the biological standpoint the 
essential function of mental process appears as the bringing 
of past experience to bear in the regulation of present be- 
haviour. This influence of the past over the present reveals itself 
objectively as modification of behaviour upon the recurrence of 
similar conditions, and subjectively as familiarity, recognition, 
remembering, recollecting, and also as that anticipation or fore- 
sight of the probable course of events which enables us to prepare 
for them and to intervene effectively to modify their course. 

If we use the phrase "the structure of the mind" to denote 
comprehensively the sum of those enduring internal conditions 
by which the play of mental process and the mode of behaviour of 
an organism are determined at each moment of its life, then we 
may say that experience modifies the structure of the mind, and. 
that it is through the persistence of these modifications that past 
experience influences present behaviour and present mental pro- 
cess. Some part of the structure of the mind is innately 
determined or inherited ; and all that is added to it or changed 
in it by the course of experience is usually and conveniently 
included under the term memory. 

It is an implication of all forms of Parallelism that the 
structure of the mind may in principle be fully described in terms 
of cerebral structure. We have already found reason to believe 
that this assumption is untenable as regards the innate structure 
of the mind. We have now to enquire whether it is tenable in 
regard to the modifications of its structure induced by experience ; 
whether, in short, all that is implied by the word memory can be 
regarded as consisting in modifications of cerebral structure.^ 

1 Epiphenomenalism identifies the structure of the mind with that of 
the brain ; Parallehsm in both its principal forms maintains that it appears 
as, and may be adequately described as, brain-structure. In examining the 
problem of memory in this chapter the argument will, for the sake of brevity, 
be directed to Epiphenomenalism ; but with some cumbrous paraplirasing it 
330 



MEMORY 331 

The psychologists of the association-school were generally 
content to assume that each idea, or some trace of it, was de- 
posited or stored in a single cell of the brain ; that these cells 
become linked together by fibres in such a way that excitement of 
one cell spreads to another and in doing so brings to consciousness 
the idea stored within it ; mental activity thus consisting in the 
" ringing up " of one cell after another and the appearance in con- 
sciousness of a corresponding train of ideas. At the present day 
no one, perhaps, would seriously defend this notion ; unless 
" idea " be taken in the sense of element of consciousness ; for we 
cannot form the vaguest notion of the nature of such a material 
trace in a single cell, nor of the way such a trace could be im- 
pressed upon it.^ It is recognized that the physical correlate in 

would apply equally well to the other forms of Parallelism. I have already 
in Chapter XII. insisted that the mere fact that the mind has a structure, or is 
a system of enduring capacities which is only very partially revealed in,/ the 
consciousness of any moment, is one with which Psychical Monism cannot deal ; 
and I say nothing further on that head. 

^ Prof. T. Ziehen has recently maintained the doctrine of " the memory-cell." 
"We assume,therefore, that the sensation of the rose is produced in certain ganglion- 
cells, and that these numerous sensory cells transmit their excitation further 
to one other ganglion-cell, a memorj^-cell . . . where it leaves a merely material 
trace or change, the image of memory" ("Introduction to Physiological 
Psychology," p. 158). But he does not attempt to suggest how we may conceive 
all this to happen. Ziehen is here writing of the visual impression of a rose. 
The following objections to this doctrine seem to me fatal to it : (i) We have 
no warrant for believing that the sensory centres that are concerned in the rise 
of the sensations of various qualities can propagate their specific modes of excita- 
tion to other cells. (2) But if it be admitted that this may happen and that the 
many sensory cells (and presumably many hundreds or thousands would be 
concerned in bringing to consciousness the fine gradations of colour of the petals 
of a tea-rose) propagate their excitations to one " memory-cell," can we suppose 
that, arrived in this cell, each of these peculiar excitations (mode of vibration 
or physico-chemical change) makes its own peculiar mark upon the " memory- 
cell " distinct from the mark or trace of all the rest ? Yet that is implied by the 
doctrine. (3) If even this be admitted as possible, there remains the impossibility 
of conceiving what can be the nature of these enduring marks, each of which 
is to determine, whenever the cell is re-excited after a long interval of time, the 
recurrence within it of a physical or physico-chemical process identical in char- 
acter with that by which the mark was impressed. (4) Lastly, there remains the 
still greater difficulty of conceiving how these marks are to condition not only 
the recurrence of the manifold of sensation qualities, but also their relative 
intensities and their spatial distribution in the memory-image. 

Prof. Wundt writes : " Every content of consciousness, be it never so 
simple and regarded as isolated from all its connexions, and therefore as not 
capable of being further analysed, is nevertheless, physiologically regarded, 
always a complicated system of different neural processes, which are distributed 
tlirough numerous nervous elements" (" Grundziige d. phys. Psychologic," vol. 



332 BODY AND MIND 

the brain of the perception of a relatively simple object must run 
its course in a large number of neurons, and that the memory- 
image or representation of that object must also have for its physical 
correlate a very complex process distributed throughout a large 
number of the same neurons and, perhaps, through others also. The 
only conception that we can form of a memory-trace in the brain 
as a neural disposition, the continuance of which might be the 
condition of the possibility of representation, is, then, that of a 
number of neurons intimately linked together to form a functional 
system ; and the linking together of the members of the system 
must be supposed to be brought about by the spread of the ex- 
citation process or current of nervous energy from member to 
member throughout the system at the moment of perception. 

Some such notion as this is now generally entertained by 
those who hold that all memory is a function of the brain.^ 
Now, there can be little doubt that the linking up of neurons in 
this way is the basis of all that can properly be called habit ; that 
in the course of life each of us forms a great number of habits ; 



i., p. 328). With this view, which seems to me quite indisputably correct, the 
doctrine of " the memory-cell " is of course wholly incompatible. 

Prof. J. V. Kries (" Ueber die materiellen Grundlagen der Bewusstseins- 
Erscheinungen," Leipzig, 1901) has clearly shown the impossibihty of finding an 
adequate physical basis for memories of general and abstract objects in terms 
of the linking together of neurons ; and he rejects decisively the crude con- 
ception of a memory-cell. Of the latter he writes: " Es ist die oberflachHchste 
und platteste aller Vorstellungen " (p. 43). Yet he proposes to regard the 
retention of general ideas as " intracellulare Leistungen " (p. 45), and writes, 
" Soil als Spur einer optischen Wahrnehmung eine verwickelte Differenzierung 
einer Zelle hinterlassen werden, so miisste man diese mit dem System ihrer Aus- 
laufer etwa durch das ganze Gebiet verzweigt und erstreckt denken, innerhalb 
dessen in anderen Gebilden die den Netzhautbildern direkt entsprechende 
Verteilung der Thatigkeits-zustande angeordnet ware. Zellen solcher Art 
kdnnte man dann die Function einer verallgemeinernden Aufbewahrung 
optischer Bilder zuschreiben." Von Kries admits that his suggestion encounters 
great difficulties ; and I think that the unprejudiced reader will find it difficult to 
regard it as essentially different from, or superior to, that " most superficial and 
banal of all notions," the memory-cell. 

1 In all my reading of physiological psychology I have nowhere found any 
attempt to think out the possibihties of the nature and mode of formation of 
a neural basis for both habit and memory which in definiteness and plausibility 
surpasses the scheme very briefly indicated in my little book, " A Primer of 
Physiological Psychology." Yet no one could be more acutely aware than 
myself of the inadequacy of this attempt as regards memory proper. The casual 
way in which most writers on these topics speak of brain-traces and memory- 
cells and so forth, without making any attempt to conceive the nature of these 
assumed traces, is to my mind astonishing. 



MEMORY 333 

and that the neurons of the cerebrum, a large proportion of which 
are not innately organized in definite systems, become so organ- 
ized in systems which are the neural bases of habits. For we 
have to recognize not only that all the acquired dexterities of the 
limbs are of the nature of habits rooted in neural dispositions, but 
also that the education of our powers of sense perception, the co- 
ordination of hand and eye, and the acquirement of speech, all 
involve and depend upon the gradual building up of similar neural 
dispositions that render possible finer and more extensive co-ordina- 
tions of movements. 

We have to recognize, then, that the building up of habit 
plays a very great part in our mental development. But Paral- 
lelism implies the assumption that all memory, all mental reten- 
tion, is of the nature of habit ; that conscious remembering and 
recollecting is but one way in which cerebral habits manifest 
themselves. This assumption must be carefully examined. If it 
should appear that there are no essential differences between the 
ways in which on the one hand undoubted habits and on the 
other hand true memory-traces are acquired, retained, and mani- 
fested, we shall have to accept theparallelistic assumption as a well- 
founded hypothesis ; but, if it can be shown that there are funda- 
mental differences, that habit and memory do not obey the same 
laws, this assumption will be discredited and we shall have gone far 
towards showing that memory proper is not conditioned only by 
material dispositions in the brain. ^ 

Of recent years a large number of exact experiments have 
been reported as investigations into memory.^ The experiments 
have in most cases consisted in committing to heart by repetition 
rows of words, letters, numbers, or more frequently nonsense 
syllables, series of syllables that convey no meaning ; and in 
determining the laws of the association and reproduction of such 

^ The distinction between habit and true memory is urged with great force 
by Prof. Bergson in his fascinating work, " Matiere et Memoire," and in much 
of the discussion of this chapter I am following his lead and reproducing his 
arguments. But limitations of space and of capacity make it impossible for 
me to present the argument and the evidence so persuasively as he has done, 
and I must refer the reader to his book for the full statement of it. There is 
much in that book which I cannot accept, because I cannot understand it, notably 
the doctrine of " pure perception," which seems to me to leave the relation 
of sensation to perception extremely obscure. 

2 The m.ost important and best-known are those of Ebbinghaus (" Ueber das 
Gedachtniss ") and of Prof. G. E. Miiller (in conjunction with Prof. Schumann and 
Dr Pilzecker), reported in Zeitschfiftfiir Psychologie, vol. 6 and Supplem. vol, i. 



334 BODY AND MIND 

series. Great refinement of method and nicety of results have 
been attained, and many important laws have been thus empirically 
established. One of the most striking of the results thus achieved 
is that the associations established by serial repetitions of this kind 
obey, in the main, in regard to their formation, operation, and decay, 
the laws of motor habit. It may be said, then, that here is sub- 
stantial evidence justifying the identification of memory with 
habit. But these experiments, though generally called investiga- 
tions into memory, are so conducted that the factor of true 
memory hardly enters into the operations. They are in the main 
investigations of verbal habit ; for there is no reason to doubt that 
such a process as the repetition of the alphabet is essentially the 
operation of a habit ; and the investigations to which I refer have 
dealt almost exclusively with processes closely approximating to 
this type.^ 

That true remembering is a process of a different type is shown 
clearly by the following considerations : — A written series of eight 
nonsense syllables is presented to me one by one by a mechanical 
arrangement, as rapidly as 1 can comfortably read them. After 
four repetitions of the reading, the first syllable alone is presented, 
and I attempt to say the series by heart and fail utterly. The 
presentation of the series is repeated again and again, I reading 
the syllables as presented. Then on trying again, perhaps after 
twelve repetitions, I succeed in saying them by heart without a 
hitch ; my organs of speech seem to roll out the sounds, and all I 
have to do is to avoid anything that may interfere with the 
process ; for, just as in executing any habitual series of manipula- 
tions with the hands, the process goes on best if left to itself. 
But now I can throw my mind back and can remember any one of 
the twelve readings more or less clearly as a unique event in my 
past history. I can remember perhaps that during the fifth 
reading I began to despair of ever learning the series, that I 
made a new effort, that someone spoke in the adjoining room and 
disturbed me disagreeably ; I may perhaps remember what he 
said. 

^ The reason alleged for the choice of nonsense syllables as the material for 
most of this work is that they are devoid of previously formed associations. 
Really they are devoid of meaning, and to regard them as differing from words 
only in that they are devoid of associations, is to assume that meaning is nothing 
but a number of mechanical associations or reproduction-tendencies. This is 
the unjustified assumption which underlies the description of such experiments 
as investigations into the laws of memory. 



MEMORY 335 

If the repetition by heart of the nonsense syllables and the 
remembering of any one of the readings of the series are both 
to be called evidences of memory, it must be admitted that two 
very different functions, two very different modes of retention, are 
denoted by the one word. Let us glance at the principle 
differences, (i) The one depends mainly upon the formation 
of a habit ; with each repetition I approach by a definite step 
towards the condition in which smooth reproduction is possible. 
In this process the successive readings contribute, then, to the 
production of a common effect, the habit, each adding a little to 
it. The remembering, on the other hand, depends wholly upon a 
single act of apprehension ; the whole process and effect, the appre- 
hension and the retention and the remembering, are absolutely 
unique and distinct from all other apprehensions, retentions, and 
rememberings. 

(2) The one process of reproduction does not necessarily 
involve any explicit reference to the past ; it involves rather a 
forward-looking attitude. Whereas the other is essentially retro- 
spective and involves a reference of that which is remembered 
to a particular moment or position in the past series of events. 

(3) The smooth reproduction of the syllables is not aided, 
but rather hindered, by any effort to cast back my thought to the 
moment of apprehension. The remembering on the other hand 
is aided by voluntary rumaging in the past ; I can by such 
efforts develope more fully and vividly my remembrance of the 
events of the successive moments. 

(4) The " learning " of the syllables involves only the linking 
together in serial order of eight simple impressions ; and in order to 
accomplish this I find it necessary to repeat the series attentively 
some twelve times, or perhaps more, the whole process occupying 
the main part of my attention for some two or three minutes. 
The remembrance of a particular event may involve the repro- 
duction of a vastly more complex set of sense-impressions made 
simultaneously or within a period of two or three seconds. These 
then are somehow linked together, and, though they are far more 
numerous and more complexly related than the row of syllables, 
their linking is effected in a single act of apprehension. 

(5) The power of reproducing the syllable-row declines very 
rapidly in a way which can be accurately measured ; even after 
five minutes or less it may have declined so far that it can only 
be effectively restored by reading the row again several times. 



336 BODY AND MIND 

The remembrance of the particular event on the other hand, 
though it seems to become less vivid and trustworthy, may be 
effected after indefinitely long intervals. 

Between the two modes of retention there are clearly great 
differences ; and, if we ask what is the essential difference between 
the impressions that are retained in these very different ways, 
the answer cannot be in doubt : the nonsense syllables convey 
a minimum of meaning, the impressions truly remembered convey 
a more or less rich meaning. Even the row of eight syllables is 
not altogether meaningless. I apprehend it as meaning a row 
which in relation to my purpose is a unity, not merely eight 
impressions, but eight members of one whole each having its 
definite place in the whole ; and, in so far as I clearly apprehend 
this whole and the parts of it as whole and parts, the process *of 
" learning " is greatly aided. The importance of the meaning is 
well brought out by consideration of the following example.' I 
set myself to learn a row of twenty nonsense syllables, and I find, 
perhaps, that one hundred or more repetitions are needed to 
enable me to reproduce the row. Then I take a passage of prose 
or verse containing twenty syllables, and I find that I can 
reproduce this row of twenty syllables after a single reading. 
How immense is the difference between the two cases ! This 
difference is due partly to the fact that in the second case the 
syllables form words each of which has meaning for me ; but chiefly 
it is due to the fact that their several meanings are synthezised to 
one whole in my consciousness, namely, the meaning of the whole 
passage. The meaning seems to bridge the series of sense- 
impressions and to bind them together. But, just as in the 
case of the reproduction of the nonsense syllables the factor of 
meaning is not altogether inoperative, though reproduction depends 
chiefly upon the links of mechanical association, so in this case 
the mechanical factor is not altogether lacking, though meaning 
plays the predominant part ; for I may find after an interval that, 
though the meaning of the passage may return to consciousness, 
I am unable accurately to reproduce the words of the original.^ 

^ I add Jjiere the results of some experiments made with the aim of bringing 
out this difference. 

Binet and Henri set children to reproduce on the one hand rows of words 
conveying no connected meaning, and on the other hand rows of words con- 
stituting intelligible sentences. They found that on the average, when only 
seven unconnected words were presented, the children remembered five of them ; 
whereas, when words conveying seventeen distinct notions were presented, 



MEMORY 337 

Everywhere in memory we find these two factors, habit and 
meaning, co-operating in various proportions ; and always meaning 
is immensely more effective than habit as a condition of reproduc- 
tion or i-emembering.^ In an earlier chapter I have shown that 
we cannot with any plausibility assume that meaning has any 
immediate physical correlate among the brain-processes. We find 
here independent evidence of the truth of this view that meaning 
is a purely psychical product of psychical activity ; for it appears 
as a factor in the process of remembering that is of an entirely 
different order from the other factor, habit ; and habit is rooted 
in material dispositions of the brain of the only kind that we can 
conceive as playing any part in mental retention. 

The distinction under discussion is so important that it seems 
worth while to illustrate it by reference to other instances of 
remembering. The visualization of complex scenes is perhaps 
the'hiost wonderful of all forms of remembering. Consider the 
following simple instance. A number, say ten, points of light are 
throv/n simultaneously, for a small fraction of a second, upon a screen, 
and I am required to draw a map of the spots. If the spots are 
irregularly distributed I find this quite impossible to achieve ; and 
perhaps it is necessary to repeat the flash from thirty to fifty times, 
before I can succeed in constructing a tolerably correct map of 

fifteen of them were remembered. Ebbinghaus learnt on the average verses 
containing fifty-six words (and a much larger number of syllables) by six or seven 
readings ; whereas, in spite of much practice in memorizing nonsense-syllables, 
he required fifty-five readings in order to be able to reproduce a series of thirty- 
six such syllables (" Grundziige d. Psychologic," by H. Ebbinghaus, p. 654). 

In a paper recently published (" fiber den Unterschied der logischen u. d. 
mechanischen Gedachtnisses," Zeitschr.f. PsycJiologie, Bd. Ivi.), Herr A. Balaban 
reports results of experiments directed to this question. Pairs of words of two 
syllables were presented successively to subjects who were instructed to try 
to retain alternate pairs on the one hand in purely mechanical fashion (i.e. with- 
out reference to their meanings), and on the other hand by combining or con- 
necting their meanings in some larger whole of meaning. The latter mode of 
learning appeared, according to the author's estimate, about twenty-five times 
as effective as the mechanical mode ; yet in such experiments the conditions are 
not favourable to the development of meanings. 

^ M. Bergson speaks of habit and " pure memory " as the two kinds of 
memory. The " pure memory," corresponding to what I call meaning, he holds 
to be a purely psychical factor, and he constructs a peculiar theory of pure memory, 
which seems to be (if I understand him rightly) a refinement of the doctrine of 
the generic image of Huxley and Romanes. For my purpose it is not necessary 
to try to follow him in this more metaphysical part of his doctrine of memory. 
For the purpose of this chapter it suffices to insist upon the indisputable fact 
that meaning plays this great part in memory, and that it is a factor of a kind 
entirely different from habit. 
22 



338 BODY AND MIND 

the arrangement of the spots. But, if the spots are so arranged 
as to mark the principal points of any geometrical figure familiar 
to me, I am able to make a correct map after one or two flashes 
only ; but only on the condition that the complex of visual sensa- 
tions suggests or evokes in my consciousness the meaning of that 
figure.^ In the former case, the only way to remember the 
arrangement of the spots is to apprehend at successive flashes the 
relations of sub-groups of three or four spots, each of which has 
some meaning for me, and at subsequent flashes to synthesize 
these sub-groups into a whole of some, sort, which is then 
remembered as a whole. In the second case the complex of 
visual sensations serves as a cue that brings to consciousness a 
meaning that was latent in the memory ; and this meaning of the 
whole group in turn serves at the moment of reproduction to 
bring to consciousness the spatial relations of the parts. 

The experiment shows how small is our capacity for re- 
membering the spatial relations of a number of seen points, if 
those relations suggest no definite meaning to our minds. Bear- 
ing this in mind, and noting also that every spot added to the 
group adds very greatly to the difficulty of reproducing the group, 
let us consider now the following case. My eye rests for a 
moment on a photograph or drawing of a striking face that is 
unknown to me. The drawing consists of a great number of 
points, lines, and areas, arranged in an extremely complex fashion ; 
yet after that brief glance I am able to picture the face with 
considerable accuracy, perhaps even after the lapse of days or 
months ; or I am able to single it out from among a large 
number of similar drawings, and my capacity to do this is not 
appreciably affected by considerable changes in the distance of 
the drawing from my eyes ; yet with every change of distance 
the retinal points stimulated are widely different. 

It may be said that my remembrance of the face is rendered 

possible by my familiarity with faces in general. This is true ; 

but it does not make any more plausible the attempt to exhibit 

my remembrance as wholly dependent on a material disposition 

formed after the pattern of a habit. If we compare the two tasks, 

that of remembering the meaningless group of dots and that of 

remembering the face, and consider each as consisting in the 

^ This general description is based upon considerable experience of experi- 
ments of this kind. There are considerable differences between individuals in 
respect to the ease with which they achieve such a task ; but those who are good 
visualizers do not seem to excel others. 



MEMORY 339 

linking together of a complex of sensations in a particular 
system of spatial relations, the latter task is enormously more 
complicated than the former, yet it is accomplished much more 
rapidly and certainly. The fact that I am familiar with faces 
does not render more plausible the assumption of a wholly 
material memory-trace. I have looked attentively at many 
thousands of faces ; and, if the result of this were merely that I 
could produce a fairly adequate " generic image " of a face, 
that result would lend itself well to interpretation in terms of 
cerebral traces. But the fact is that, of all these many thousands 
of faces, I can clearly and distinctly picture some hundreds at 
least, and could recognize as having been seen by me on some 
prevjious occasion probably some thousands, certainly many 
hundreds. How, on any conceivable scheme of cerebral traces, 
are these thousands of successive perceptions to co-operate in 
facilitating my perception and my remembering of a particular 
face, and yet to leave separate and distinct traces, each in itself 
an immensely complex neural disposition capable of conditioning 
the remembrance of a particular face ? 

Association - psychologists have generally adopted as their 
fundamental proposition some such assertion as that impressions 
received simultaneously or in immediate succession tend to 
cohere or to be associated together and to return to consciousness 
together or in immediate succession. And they have generally 
deduced from this so-called law a corresponding neural law, to 
the effect that the excitement, simultaneously or in immediate 
succession, of neural elements (nerve-cells or groups of them) 
results in the formation of paths of low resistance between them, 
by which they are put in functional association or made part of 
one system. ^ Now, if this deduction were correct, the assumption 
that all memory can be described in terms of brain-traces would 
be far more plausible than it actually is. But neither the 
premise nor the conclusion of the argument is justified by the 

^ The formation of motor habits certainly consists in the estabhshment of 
such neural associations, and, as we have seen, if all memory is conditioned by 
brain-traces, such neural association must be the basis of all memory. It might, 
then, have been expected that those who confidently assert that all facts of 
memory can be described in terms of neural mechanism would have some definite 
notions as to how such neural associations are effected. But that is by no means 
the case. The only plausible view of the formation of such neural associations 
is that indicated in my " Primer of Physiological Psychology," and based upon 
the hypothesis of " inhibition by drainage." Yet few physiologists or psychol- 
ogists have accepted that hypothesis. 



340 BODY AND MIND 

facts. Our consciousness comprises again and again complex 
conjunctions of sensations which show no appreciable tendency 
to become associated together. It is only when the attention is 
turned upon the objects that excite sensations, and when the 
sensations enter into the process of perception (serving as cues 
that bring some meaning to consciousness) that associations are 
formed. And even then, the formation of an effective neural 
association is by no means an immediate and invariable result ; 
rather it may require frequent repetition of the perceptive 
processes ; especially if the impressions to be associated belong to 
different sense-provinces. The fact is well illustrated by the 
following experience. 

I began to teach one of my children his letters and 
numbers. The boy was six years old, bright, and fairly keen 
to master his tasks. He quickly learned to repeat the alphabet ; 
and he quickly learnt also to recognize the letters printed in 
large type on cards ; so that, the alphabet being laid out before 
him, he could pick out a second set of the letters and place each 
one without hesitation beneath its exemplar. Each letter was 
always named by me and generally by him, as it was taken up ; 
and he frequently repeated the alphabet, pointing to each letter 
as he named it. Now the statements commonly current about 
association would lead one to expect that the child would be able 
to name the separate letters at sight (i.e. would acquire an effective 
association between the visual impression and the name of each 
letter) after a very few namings. But this was by no means 
the case. It was not until the naming had been repeated 
attentively many hundreds of times throughout some months 
that he acquired such effective associations. The learning to 
name the numbers from one to ten illustrated even more strik- 
ingly the difficulty of forming simple mechanical associations ; 
since, though only ten visual forms and ten names were to be 
associated, an even larger number of repetitions of the naming 
were required to establish really effective associations.^ 

This experience brought home to me very vividly the great 
difference between memory and mechanical association. For the 
boy, who required so many hundred repetitions for the establish- 
ment of these simple mechanical associations, would often surprise 

1 It should be added that the naming was not repeated on any one day so 
often as to induce in the child a distaste for the task ; also that the learning to 
name the numbers came first. 



MEMORY 341 

me by referring to scenes and events observed by him months or even 
years previously, sometimes describing them in a way that seemed 
to imply vivid and faithful representation. Yet the memory- 
pictures of such scenes involved far more complex conjunctions 
of partial impressions than did the remembering the name of a 
printed letter or number. ^ 

The essential difference between the rememberings of these two 
kinds was that in the one case meaning was at a minimum, and 
remembering depended almost wholly upon mechanical or neural 
association of the nature of a habit ; whereas the complex scenes 
and events remembered (in some instances after a single percep- 
tion only) were full of meaning. 

The hardened associationist will seek to reconcile these facts 
with his doctrine by asserting that what is here called richness of 
meaning of an impression consists in the existence of many 
associations previously formed between that impression and other 
impressions or sensations. But that contention will not enable 
him to meet the difficulty ; for it has been abundantly established 
by the experimental investigators - of association that an impres- 
sion which is already associated with others acquires new associa- 
tions with more difficulty than one which is free from previously 
formed associations, and that the difficulty is greater the greater 
the number of the previously formed associations. Hence, if this 
view of the nature of meaning were true, the richer the meaning 
the greater should be the difficulty of combining any complex of 
sense impressions and of reproducing them as one memory 
picture ; it is therefore impossible to account in this way for the 
fact that impressions which convey much meaning are combined 
and remembered with so much less difficulty than those of little 
meaning.^ 

^ It may be that to this boy the acquirement of associations of this Itind was 
more difficult than to most children ; but even so, the significance of the facts . 
remains. 

2 Prof. G. E. Miiller, op. cit. 

^ It seems possible to throw light upon this question by the aid of the principle 
of correlation. If all memory or retention is of one type, the type of habit, and 
depends upon one fundamental factor, such as the plasticity of the brain-structure, 
then if a number of persons are tested as regards their excellence in a number 
of memorizing tasks, there should appear a high degree of correlation between 
the achievements of this group of persons under the several tests ; i.e. if the 
persons are arranged in order of merit in respect to their execution of each of 
the tasks, there should be a considerable degree of correspondence between the 
several orders. If, on the other hand, memorizing involves two fundamentally 
different factors, namely habit and pure memory, and if these co-operate in very 



342 BODY AND MIND 

We have, then, very strong grounds for maintaining that all 
mental retention and reproduction are conditioned in two very 
different ways ; one of these ways, the way of motor habit and 
automatism and mechanical association, is adequately accounted 
for by the conception of the formation of neural associations by 
the repeated passage of the current of nervous energy between 
neuron and neuron, each passage leaving the track more open 
for subsequent passages,^ This is the only plausible, and in fact 
seems to be the only possible, conception of the way in which 
mental retention can be conditioned by cerebral structure or 
function ; but the strict limitations of this mode of retention, 
especially the need of many repetitions of the impressions even in 
very simple instances of mechanical association, show that we 
cannot regard it as the sole or principal condition of the higher 
form of retention or true memory. This we see depends upon 
meaning ; and meaning, as we have seen, is just that all important 
factor in mental process to which we can assign no immediate 
physical correlate among the brain-processes. 

The foregoing considerations point to a view of the conditions 
of memory or mental retention intermediate between the two 
extreme views that have long been opposed to one another, the 
view that it is wholly conditioned by neural structure, and the 
view that it is conditioned wholly in some immaterial fashion. I 
venture to offer the following suggestion towards a theory of 
memory. We have regarded every perception or idea as a 
conjunction of sensory content with meaning. The sensory 
content, a complex of sensations or of images or of both, is 
essentially the expression of psycho-physical interaction. The 



different proportions in different kinds of memorizing, as we have maintained, 
and if these two factors vary in effectiveness from one mind to another inde- 
pendently of one another, then we may hope to obtain evidence of the truth of 
this view by testing a group of persons in respect to tasks which involve pre- 
dominantly habit-formation and true memory respectively. If such experiments 
revealed high correlation between the orders of achievement in respect to tasks of 
the iirst kind, and also between orders of achievement in respect to tasks of the 
second kind, but low correlation of the achievements in tasks of the one kind 
with those in tasks of the other kind, such a result would go far to establish the 
distinction between the two kinds of memory. Experiments directed along 
these lines are in progress, but are not yet ready for publication. The results 
so far achieved bear out the distinction in the way indicated. 

1 It is highly probable that the chief resistances to the passage of the current 
lie at the synapses, or junctions between neurons, and that the essential effect 
of the passage of the current is a diminution of these synaptic resistances. 



MEMORY 343 

idea, as a compound of sensory content and meaning, does not 
continue to exist as such in the interval between its acquisition and 
its reproduction. Neural associations or habits may so link groups 
of sensory elements of the brain as to lead to successive revival 
of the corresponding sensory complexes ; something of this sort is 
the main condition of the predominantly mechanical reproduction 
of the alphabet or of rows of nonsense syllables learnt by frequent 
repetition. On the other hand, in so far as each sensory complex 
has evoked meaning in the past, it tends to revive it upon its 
reproduction and thus to reinstate the idea in consciousness. This 
is the process of evocation of an idea from the neural side. It 
plays only a subordinate part in the higher processes of remember- 
ing. These are determined mainly from the psychical side. 
What, then, is it that persists in the psychical realm ? Shall 
we say it is the meanings themselves ? ^ Clearly they do not 
persist as facts of consciousness. But the development of the 
mind from infancy onwards consists largely in the development 
of capacities for ideas or thoughts of richer, fuller, more abstract 
and more general meanings. If then meanings have no immediate 
physical correlates or counterparts in the brain, and if the mean- 
ings themselves do not persist, we must suppose that the persistent 
conditions of meanings are psychical dispositions. 

We must believe, then, that there persist psychical dispositions, 
each of which is an enduring feature of the psychical structure 
and an enduring condition of the possibility of the return to 
consciousness of the corresponding meaning. These dispositions 
are elaborated in the course of experience and linked according 
to logical principles in processes of judgment and reasoning ; 
whenever meanings become synthesized to larger logical wholes, 
the corresponding dispositions become linked as functional wholes, 
so that, when an appropriate sensory cue recalls one meaning to 
consciousness, the whole of which it is a part is also restored 
(under conditions otherwise favourable). And we may suppose 
that each meaning, as it comes into consciousness, tends to restore 
the sensory content which serves as its cue when the idea is 
evoked from the physical side. And we may suppose further 
that the restoration to consciousness of the sensory content 

^ The view that meanings persist in the mind as such, but in a reduced or 
subconscious condition, has been suggested by Mr W. M. Keatinge in chap. VIII. 
of his " Suggestion in Education." Although the view I am presenting differs 
in certain respects from his, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to his interest- 
ing suggestion. 



344 BODY AND MIND 

involves the re-excitement of the system of neural elements, 
whose processes are the inseparable concomitants of the sensation 
elements. In this way the train of representation is determined 
all along the line from both the neural and the psychical sides, 
with constant psycho-physical interaction initiated now from this 
side, now from that. In thinking, judging, and in reasoning proper, 
the train of ideas is determined predominantly by the play of 
meanings, according to the principle of reproduction of similars 
under the guidance of the dominant purpose at the time ; the 
images evoked may be verbal only, the neural correlate being 
reduced to a minimum, and habit being completely subordinated 
to thought. 

This difficult and perhaps somewhat vague conception may 
perhaps be made clearer by a simile. Let the sensory brain ele- 
ments of specific constitution be likened to the wires of a great 
piano. Each when struck gives out the tone (the quality of sensa- 
tion) peculiar to itself Habit may be likened to material con- 
nexions between the wires which bind them into groups and compel 
the members of each group to vibrate together. So far our simile 
illustrates only the conception of memory as materially con- 
ditioned. But the frame of piano wires may not only be struck 
from below by the hammers connected with the keyboard (the 
sense-organs), but may also be set vibrating in harmonious groups 
by action from above, namely, they may take up by resonance the 
notes of a melody vibrating in the air. The total system of 
wires vibrating at any moment will then be determined in three 
ways, (i) by operations on the keyboard (sense-stimuli), (2) by 
the nature of the mechanical ties established between the wires 
(habit), (3) by the air-borne chords and melodies reaching them 
(meanings). The simile fails of course in that, in the case of the 
piano, the vibrations of the air which act upon the wires are but 
forms of motion similar to those of the wires themselves. And, 
even if we try to improve it by adding a phonographic plate, 
which may store up the vibrations in static form and at a later 
time return them to the air and through it to the piano-wires, it 
still fails in that the trace upon the plate is merely the trace of 
one particular series of impressions ; whereas the psychical dis- 
position is the product of a gradual growth renewed upon many 
occasions. 

According to this scheme, then, the sensory content of con- 
sciousness is essentially the expression of psycho-physical inter- 



MEMORY 345 

action, and can be initiated either from the neural side (in 
accordance with the conjunctions of sense-stimuli and preformed 
habits or neural associations), when it brings meanings to con- 
sciousness ; or, from the psychical side, by meanings which demand 
specific sensory complexes for the completion of the ideas, and 
which thus in turn through the medium of sensation bring neural 
dispositions into play. Or, in other words, we may say that 
sensation and imagery are the medium through which the bodily 
processes provoke the thought activities of the soul and through 
which thought in turn plays back upon the brain-processes.^ 

Here, it seems to me, we have in rough outline a theory of 
memory which is consistent with all the empirical data, especially 
all those which show the dependence of sensation and imagery 
upon the integrity of the brain, and which yet relieves us of the 
impossible task of conceiving a physical basis for all memory, 
and allows us to believe that true memory is conditioned by the 
persistence of modifications of psychical structure or capacities. 

This view of the twofold nature of the conditions of mental 
retention finds support in certain cases in which a physical shock 
to the brain seems to have destroyed or temporarily abolished the 
whole content of memory in so far as it depends on physical 
traces in the brain ; the most notable of such cases is that of Mr 
Hanna.2 A violent concussion of the brain reduced this patient 
to a condition which in many respects resembled that of a new- 
born infant. He was found to have lost all acquired facilities of 
movement, including those of speech and locomotion ; although 
an educated man, he could understand neither written nor spoken 
language, nor could he interpret the most familiar sense-impres- 
sions ; yet according to his own account, which there seems no 
reason to suppose is not in the main trustworthy, he puzzled over 

^ The most striking evidence of the determination of the sensory content of 
consciousness by meaning is afforded by the study of the struggle of two unhke 
visual fields presented to the right and left eyes respectively. If the two fields 
are not of very unequal brightness, attention may be directed at will to either 
field {i.e., one may think of the objects presented in either field) ; the sensory 
content excited through the corresponding eye then predominates to the partial 
or complete suppression of the sensations excited through the other eye. In this 
way one learns to use a monocular microscope while keeping both eyes open. 
It is especially significant that when one's purpose is to combine the objects of the 
two fields, this also is possible (as when one draws an object under the microscope 
with the aid of the camera lucida) ; and that then the sensory contents of the 
two fields coexist in consciousness. 

^ " Multiple Personahty," by B. Sidis and S. P. Goodhart, London, 1905. 



346 BODY AND MIND 

his condition, used almost at the first moment of recovery of 
consciousness the category of causation,^ and intelligently experi- 
mented in order to regain an understanding of his surroundings. 
He reacquired in the course of a few months almost all the 
stock of common facilities and knowledge that is acquired by a 
child in the course of many years. " He learned so rapidly in 
those days that it was almost miraculous." Six weeks after the 
accident he was able to talk freely and to give an intelligent account 
of his condition. Now it might be suggested that all this rapid 
reacquisition was not a new learning, but a mere restoration under 
practice of the temporarily paralysed memory-traces in his brain. 
But that interpretation seems to be ruled out by the fact that for 
a long time the content of his memory was entirely new ; and, 
though his old memories were eventually restored, that restoration 
seems to have set in at a later date as a process quite distinct 
from the new learning. The case, then, lends itself very v/ell to 
interpretation in terms of the theory of memory proposed above. 
If we suppose that all brain-traces of the nature of acquired habits 
were paralysed by the shock and remained incapable of functioning 
during the period of new learning, we may explain the great 
rapidity of the processes of acquisition by the assumption that 
the psychical dispositions elaborated in the course of his earlier 
experience remained ready to be brought into play by appropriate 
conjunctions of sense-stimuli, and that under their guidance the 
neural dispositions, whose co-operation is necessary for effective 
thought and expression, were rapidly organized. 

Without, then, maintaining that the theory of the material 
conditioning of all memory can as yet be absolutely disproved, I 
conclude that it remains an extremely improbable hypothesis 
resting upon the general arguments in favour of Parallelism, rather 
than upon any evidence directly supporting it. And I submit 
that to regard the conditions of mental retention as of two 
disparate natures, namely, material and psychical, is more in 
harmony with all the empirical evidence at present available. 

1 He noted, for example, that when his attendants moved their Hps he 
heard sounds, and he inferred that in this way they communicated with one 
another ; and, after discovering that he had the power of moving the parts of 
his body, he noted the movement of another object (a man) and inferred that he 
himself had caused it to move [op. cit., pp. 109, no). 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE BEARING OF THE RESULTS OF "PSYCHICAL 
RESEARCH" ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PROBLEM 

DURING the last thirty years the Society for Psychical 
Research has investigated in a strictly scientific manner 
certain obscure phenomena, the occurrence of which 
has been accepted by the popular mind in all ages and in all 
countries, but which have been rejected by the official world of 
modern science as merely superstitious survivals from the dark 
ages, reinforced by contemporary errors of observation due to the 
influence of these traditional superstitions. 

At the present day, no one undertaking to review the psycho- 
physical problem can ignore the results of these investigations 
without laying himself open to the charge of culpable ignorance 
or unscientific prejudice. 

The principal aim of the Society for Psychical Research 
has been to obtain, if possible, empirical evidence that human 
personality may and does survive in some sense or degree the 
death of the body. A considerhble mass of evidence pointing in 
this direction has been accumulated. Its nature is such that 
many of those who have devoted attention to the work and 
have had a full and first-hand acquaintance with the investigations 
and their results, have become convinced that survival is a fact. 
And among these persons so convinced are several who, in 
respect to their competence to form a sane and critical judgment 
on this difficult question, cannot be rated inferior to any other 
persons. 

Nevertheless, in my judgment, the evidence is not of such a 
nature that it can be stated in a form which should produce con- 
viction in the mind of any impartial inquirer. Again and again 
the evidential character of the observations has fallen just short 
of perfection ; the objections that stand between us and the 
acceptance of the conclusion seem to tremble and sway ; but still 
they are not cast down, the critical blow has not been struck ; and, 

347 



348 BODY AND MIND 

perhaps, they will remain erect in spite of all efforts, This being 
the state of affairs, I shall not adduce any of this evidence,^ but 
will merely point out that one of the advantages of the animistic 
solution of the psycho-physical problem is that its acceptance 
keeps our minds open for the impartial consideration of evidence 
of this sort ; and that it is possible and seems even probable that 
Animism may receive direct and unquestionable verification 
through these investigations :^ whereas Parallelism (including under 

^ For full accounts of the work the reader must turn. to the Proceedings of the 
S. P. R. He will find excellent samples and discussions of the evidence in Sir 
O. Lodge's " Survival of Man," and in the late Mr Podmore's " The Newer 
Spiritualism." The former accepts, the latter rejects the evidence for survival. 

^ Some of my readers may object that empirical evidence of the survival 
of personality is in principle impossible. This was the opinion forcibly expressed 
by Kant in his " Traume eines Geister-sehers," and never abandoned by him. 
The question is important, and a brief discussion of it here may serve to reinforce 
what was said on an earlier page in criticism of Kant's arbitrary restriction of 
empirical science to mechanistic conceptions. The unjustified assumption implied 
by the objection is that conceptions based upon empirical evidence must be concep- 
tions of objects capable in principle of being perceived through the senses. It has 
already been pointed out that many of the most valuable conceptions of physical 
science do not conform to this requirement. In order to bring home to our minds 
the invalidity of the assumption, let us imagine the following case. After the death 
of an intimate friend you seal up a pencil and a writing-block in a glass vessel. 
Then, whenever mentally or verbally you address questions to your deceased 
friend as though he were beside you, the pencil stands up and writes upon the 
paper, giving intelligent replies to your questions. In this way you conduct 
elaborate and oft-renewed conversations, in which the writing seems always 
perfectly to express the personality of your friend, even to revealing many facts 
which, as you are able afterwards to discover, must have been known to him 
but to no other person, facts such as the contents of a private writing-desk, 
or a sealed personal journal. If this occurred, it would constitute an empirical 
proof of the continued existence of the personality of your friend in some manner 
not directly perceptible by the senses, in spite of the complete dissolution of his 
bodily organism. You would infer his continued existence from the phenomena, 
though you would remain unable to imagine the mode of his existence ; and to 
refuse to do so would be irrational and absurd. No one asserts that such pheno- 
mena have been observed ; but to assert that it is impossible that they should 
occur is to beg the question in dispute and to argue in a circle ; for the denial 
of its possibility could only be based on a priori grounds. But nothing is im- 
possible save the self-contradictory. Now, although the phenomena we have 
imagined have not been observed, something similar, something constituting 
evidence of a similar nature, does occur. Pencils do produce what seem to be 
messages written by deceased persons ; but in the observed cases (I leave out 
of account the alleged cases of " direct writing ") the pencil is held and moved 
by the hand and arm of a living person, who, however, remains ignorant of its 
doings and of the thought expressed in the writing. This fact, that the pencil 
is moved by the hand of a living person, complicates immensely the task of 
evaluating the significance of the writing, but does not in principle affect the 
validity of the inference that may be drawn from it. 



THE RESULTS OF " PSYCHICAL RESEARCH " 349 

that term all forms of the anti-animistic hypotheses) closes our 
minds to this possibility, and is liable at any moment to be finally 
refuted by improvement of the quality of this empirical evidence 
for survival. 

For if, as was argued in Chapter XIV., Animism is the only 
solution of the psycho-physical problem compatible with a belief 
in any continuance of personality after death, the empirical proof 
of such continuance would be the verification of Animism ; it 
would be proof that the differences between the living human 
organism and the corpse are due to the presence or operation 
within the former of some factor or principle which is 
different from the body and capable of existing independently 
of it. 

But though, in my judgment, this verification of Animism has 
not been furnished by " psychical research," a very important posi- 
tive result has been achieved by it, namely, it has established the 
occurrence of phenomena that are incompatible with the me- 
chanistic assumption. I refer especially to the phenomena of 
telepathy.^ 

I cannot attempt to present here the evidence for the reality of 
telepathy. It must suffice to say that it is of such a nature as to 
compel the assent of any competent person who studies it im- 
partially. Now, so long as we consider only the evidence of 
telepathy between persons at no great distance from one another, 
it is possible to make the facts appear compatible with the 
mechanistic assumption by uttering the " blessed " word " brain- 
waves." ^ But the strain upon the mechanistic assumption 
becomes insupportable by it when we consider the following 
facts : Minute studies of automatic writings, and especially those 
recently reported ^ under the head of " Cross-Correspondences," 
have shown that such writings frequently reveal knowledge of facts 
which could not have been acquired by the writer by normal 
means, and could not have been telepathically communicated 
from any living person in the neighbourhood of the writer. In 

1 " The communication of mind with mind by means other than the recognized 
channels of sense." The evidence is reviewed in Encyl. Brit, nth Ed. Art. 
" Telepathy." 

- The explanation of telepathy at close quarters by the hypothesis of " brain- 
waves " transmitted tlirough the ether cannot be absolutely rejected. But to 
ray mind the difficulties are so great that the hypothesis is incredible. It is 
usual to support this hypothesis by pointing to the facts of wireless telegraphy. 

^ Proceedings of the S.P.R. from 1907 onwards. 



350 BODY AND MIND 

short, the evidence is such that the keenest adverse critics ^ of the 
view which sees in these writings the expression of the surviving 
personaHties of deceased persons, are driven to postulate as the 
only possible alternative explanation of some of them the 
direct communication of complex and subtle thoughts between 
persons separated by hundreds and even thousands of miles, 
thoughts of which neither is conscious or has been conscious at 
any time, so far as can be ascertained. - There is good evidence 
also that in some cases three persons widely separated in space 
have taken part in expressing by automatic writing a single 
thought. Unless, then, we are prepared to adopt the supposition 
of a senseless and motiveless conspiracy of fraud among a number 
of persons who have shown themselves to be perfectly upright 
and earnest in every other relation,^ we must recognize that we 
stand before the dilemma — survival or telepathy of this far- 
reaching kind. The acceptance of either horn of the dilemma 
is fatal to the mechanistic scheme of things. For, even if the 
hypothesis of " brain-waves " be regarded as affording a possible 
explanation of simple telepathic communication at short range, it 
becomes wholly incredible if it is suggested as an explanation of 
the co-operation of widely separated " automatic " writers in the 
expression of one thought. This, then, is the principal import- 
ance I attach to the results hitherto achieved by " psychical 
research," namely, I regard the research as having established the 
occurrence of phenomena which cannot be reconciled with the 
mechanistic scheme of things ; and I adduce the results here in 
order to add them to the great mass of evidence to the same effect 
set forth in the foregoing chapters. 

Besides the evidence that leads to this dilemma, so fatal to the 
mechanistic dogma, " psychical research " has established the 
reality of other phenomena very difficult to reconcile with it. 
Of these I will cite here only two classes. First, it has been shown 
that under certain conditions (especially in the hypnotic and post- 
hypnotic states) the mind may exert an influence over the organic 
processes of the body far greater than any that had been gener- 
ally recognized by physiologists. Especially noteworthy are the 

^ This was the alternative hypothesis adopted by the late Mr F. Podmore, whose 
acquaintance with the facts was intimate and extensive, and who during many 
years had built up for himself a reputation as the keenest critic of the advanced 
wing of the S. P. R. (See his posthumous work, " The Newer Spirituahsm.") 

^ I raay add that my personal knowledge of leading members of this group 
of workers renders this supposition ridiculous to my mind. 



THE RESULTS OF "PSYCHICAL RESEARCH" 351 

production of blisters, erythemata, and ecchymoses, of the skin 
(the so-called stigmata) in positions and of definite shapes deter- 
mined by verbal suggestions, and the rapid healing of wounds or 
burns with almost complete suppression of inflammation ; and 
with these may be put the complete suppression or prevention of 
pain, even pain of such severity as normally accompanies a major 
surgical operation. ^ 

Now it is true that the production of these and similar effects 
involves only an extension or intensification of powers normally 
excerised by the mind over the bodily processes. But to say that, 
is not to deprive the facts of the significance that I would attribute 
to them. Rather, these instances of hypernormal mental control 
over bodily processes serve merely to place in a clearer light, to 
bring home more forcibly to us, the impossibility of explaining 
these processes on mechanical principles, the impossibility of 
exhibiting these psycho-physical processes as purely chemico- 
physical or mechanical processes. By the free use of speculation 
I have myself carried the hypothetical account of the nervous 
changes involved in hypnosis as far, perhaps, as any other 
physiologist.'^ But it must be frankly recognized that even though 
my account, or any other yet proposed, be accepted as approxi- 
mately true, the processes are by no means explained ; the chief 
part of the facts remains refractory to explanation by mechanical 
hypotheses. Let us consider for a moment one of the simplest 
and most familiar instances of such control ; the production of 
local anaesthesia or the allied process of the suppression of local 
neuralgic pain. I touch the left eye of a subject in hypnosis ^ as 
he sits with closed eyes, and tell him that he can see nothing 
with that eye. On opening his eyes he is then blind of the left 
eye,* and remains so until its vision is restored by a new 

^ For the evidences of such effects I refer the reader to Dr Milne Bramwell's 
" Hypnotism, its History, Theory, and Practice," London, 1903. 

2 " The State of the Brain during Hj^nosis," Brain, vol. 31, and Art. 
" Hjrpnotism" in Ency. Brit., nth Ed. 

^ This and similar effects can be obtained in a considerable proportion of 
subjects, but the reader must not be misled into supposing that they can be 
readily produced in every subject. 

■* Any critically disposed reader unfamihar with experiments of this kind, 
will be inchned to assume that the subject feigns blindness of the left eye, out of 
complaisance or obedience to the operator. But that the blindness of the left 
eye is genuine and involuntary may easily be shown by the following procedure. 
The lateral parts of the normal field of view are fields of monocular vision, the 
middle part only being a field of binocular vision ; the ordinary working man is 
ignorant of the boundaries between the monocular and the binocular parts 



352 BODY AND MIND 

suggestion to that effect. Or a subject who has been racked for 
days, or weeks, with intense neuralgic pain becomes completely 
free of the pain almost instantaneously upon mere verbal 
suggestion to that effect during hypnosis. Now it seems highly 
probable that in every such case the sensory path or centre of 
the brain concerned in the production of the sensation which 
is, as it were, cut out of the subject's consciousness, becomes 
functionally dissociated from the rest of the brain, i.e. circumscribed 
or isolated. But how is this dissociation or circumscription 
effected ? The subject himself knows nothing of the anatomy of 
his brain ; and, even if his brain could be so enlarged that all the 
members of the International Congress of Physiologists could walk 
about inside his nerve fibres and hold a conference in one of his 
" ganglion cells," their united knowledge and the resources of all 
their laboratories would not suffice to enable them to effect such 
an operation as the isolation of the sensory centres of the left eye 
from those of the right eye, and from the rest of the brain. If it 
be suggested that the ansesthesia of the left eye is produced by 
some paralysis of the optic nerve, comparable to the application 
of a ligature to it (and this of course would be within the com- 
petence of the physiologist), the case is brought no nearer to the 
possibility of a mechanistic explanation ; for it is utterly im- 
possible to conceive that the neural impulses initiated in the 
auditory nerve by the sound of the words, " Your left eye is 
blind," should find their way to the fibres of the left optic nerve ; 
nor, if arrived there, could they in any conceivable fashion paralyse 
the conductivity of the nerve. 

These processes in short remain no less mysterious and no less 
refactory to mechanistic explanations than the processes of growth 
and repair by which complex organisms develop from the germ- 
cells and maintain or restore the integrity of their organs. The 
similarity to normal processes of growth and repair of these 
processes of control of organic function initiated by verbal 

of the field, and if, while his eyes are directed to a spot before him, an object is 
brought slowly forward from behind his head, it passes at a given moment from 
the monocular to the binocular part of his field of view, without affording him 
any indication of the fact. Now if this experiment be made with a subject 
whose left eye has been rendered anaesthetic by suggestion, an object being 
brought slowly forward on his left side and the subject being instructed to indicate 
the moment at which it becomes perceptible to him, he will signal his perception 
of the object at the moment that it crosses the boundary between the monocular 
and the binocular parts of his normal field of view, i.e. the moment at which 
it enters the field of the right eye. 



THE RESULTS OF "PSYCHICAL RESEARCH" 353 

suggestion, i.e. by mental influences (though carried out in 
detail by processess of which the subject remains wholly un- 
conscious), goes far to justify the assimilation of the processes 
of these two types, and to justify the belief that the normal 
processes of growth and repair are in some sense controlled by 
mind, or by a teleological principle of which our conscious 
intelligence is but one mode of manifestation among others. 

Hypnotic experiments of another class seem to me 
to call for special mention in the present connexion, namely 
those which have revealed in several subjects an astonishing 
power of appreciating time or duration.^ The essence of the 
experiments was that the subject, having been instructed during 
hypnosis to make some simple written record at some future 
moment (generally stated in thousands of minutes), carried out 
the instruction in a great majority of cases with hardly appreciable 
error.^ Many interesting problems are raised by these experi- 
ments ; but, leaving on one side the evidence of. subconscious 
calculations of considerable complexity, I wish to insist only on 
the main point, the awareness of the arrival of the prescribed 
moment. It is usual to seek to explain simpler cases of apprecia- 
tion of the passage of time by some vague suggestion of a 
subconscious counting of some physiological rhythm. But in 
these cases, even if the ordinary means of learning the time 
{e.g. a reliable watch) had been used by the subject at the 
moment of the reception of the suggestion, this explanation 
would remain very far-fetched and improbable ; for we know of 
no bodily rhythm sufficiently constant to serve as the basis of 
so accurate an appreciation of duration as would have enabled 
the subject to carry out the suggestion with the high degree of 
accuracy shown. And in some cases the subject had no normal 
means of learning the time of day for considerable periods before 
and after the reception of the suggestion, and yet the accuracy 
of the result was not diminished. What then can be made of 
these cases ? They are too numerous, too carefully studied and 
reported by competent observers, to be set aside as merely in- 

^ The principal instances are those carefully studied and reported by the late 
Prof. Delboeuff, by Dr Milne Bramwell {op. cit.), and by Dr T. W. Mitchell, 
"A Case of Post H3^notic Appreciation of Time" (Proc. S. P. R., vol. xxi.). 
At the time of going to press I am engaged in studying a subject who seems to 
exhibit this power in a very striking manner, as well as the production of blisters 
and extravasations of blood from the skin in response to verbal suggestion. 

* The time-errors were frequently less than one minute, seldom more than five 

23 



354 BODY AND MIND 

stances of mal-observation. The most commonplace hypothesis 
that seems adequate to account for them is one of subconscious 
telepathy. But, whatever the true explanation may be, they 
must, I think, be added to the class of phenomena manifestly 
irreconcilable with the mechanistic dogma. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
CONCLUSION 

IN this final chapter it remains to draw together the threads of 
the long discussion and to state succinctly what conclusions 
seem to be justified by the evidences and reasonings we 
have reviewed. 

We have seen how the great successes of the mechanical 
principles of explanation in the physical sciences, and their more 
limited success in the biological sciences, have led the greater 
part of the modern world of science confidently to assume that 
these principles are adequate for the explanation of all biological 
phenomena, and to reject as unnecessary the hypothesis of the 
co-operation of some teleological principle in their determination. 
We have seen how this opinion has seemed to find support in the 
law of the conservation of energy, in the Darwinian principles, 
and in the modern developments of cerebral anatomy and 
physiology. We have seen that the belief thus engendered in 
the adequacy and the exclusive sway of mechanical principles in 
both the inorganic and organic realms has been and remains the 
principal ground of the rejection of Animism by the modern 
world. We saw also that the more enlightened of the opponents 
of Animism, recognizing the uncertain nature of this ground, have 
rested their case mainly upon certain metaphysical arguments 
that make against the acceptance of the notion of psycho- 
physical interaction. We then examined the chief types of the 
current monistic formulations of the relation of mind to body ; and 
we found that each of them encounters great difficulties peculiar 
to itself, as well as others common to all of them. After 
ascertaining that there is no escape from the dilemma. Animism 
or Parallelism, we proceeded to the defence of Animism ; and 
first, we found that none of the arguments, neither those of a 
metaphysical or epistemological nature, nor those drawn from the 
natural sciences, render impossible or untenable the notion of 
psycho-physical interaction. We then surveyed a mass of 

355 



356 BODY AND MIND 

evidence which shows that the mechanical principles are not 
adequate to the explanation of biological phenomena, neither the 
phenomena of racial evolution nor those of the development of 
individual organisms, nor the behaviour of men and animals. 
In the psychological chapters evidence was adduced which 
conclusively proves that a strict parallelism between our psychical 
processes and the physical processes of our brains does not as a 
matter of empirical fact obtain ; and it was shown that facts of 
our conscious life, especially the fact of psychical individuality, 
the fact of the unity of the consciousness • correlated with the 
physical manifold of brain-processes, cannot be rendered intelli- 
gible (as admitted by leading Parallelists) ^ without the postula- 
tion of some ground of unity other than the brain or material 
organism. 

The empirical evidence, then, seems to weigh very strongly 
against Parallelism and in favour of Animism. And we saw that, 
though the acceptance of either horn of the dilemma involves the 
acceptance of a number of strange consequences and leaves on 
our hands a number of questions to which we can return na- 
answer. Animism has this great advantage over its rival, namely, 
that it remains on the plane of empirical science, and, while 
leaving the metaphysical questions open for independent treat- 
ment, can look forward to obtaining further light on its problems 
through further scientific research. It is thus a doctrine that 
stimulates our curiosity and stirs us to further efforts ; whereas 
Parallelism necessarily involves the acceptance of metaphysical 
doctrines which claim to embody ultimate truth and which set 
rigid limits to the possibilities of further insight into the nature 
of the world, and it finds itself forced to regard certain of its 
problems as ultimately inexplicable. 

Finally, we have seen that Parallelism rules out all religious 
conceptions and hopes and aspirations, save those (if there be 
any) which are compatible with a strictly mechanistic Pantheism, 
a Pantheism which differs from rigid Materialism not at all in 
respect to practical consequences for the life of mankind ; whereas 
Animism in this sphere also leaves open the whole field for 
further speculation and inquiry, and permits us to hope and even 
to believe that the world is better than it seems ; that the bitter 
injustices men suffer are not utterly irreparable ; that their moral 

1 I remind the reader of Paulsen's dictum, " Die Seele ist eine auf nicht 
weiter sagbarer Weise zusammen gebundene ^''ielheit innerer Erlebnisse." 



CONCLUSION 357 

efforts are not wholly futile ; that the life of the human race may- 
have a wider significance than we can demonstrate ; and that the 
advent of a " kindly comet," or the getting out of hand of some 
unusually virulent tribe of microbes, would not necessarily mean 
the final nullity of human endeavour. 

These seem to me overwhelmingly strong reasons for 
accepting, as the best working hypothesis of the psycho-physical 
relation, the animistic horn of the dilemma. I shall now very 
briefly consider the principal varieties of the animistic conception, 
and attempt to estimate the relative strengths of their claims on 
our acceptance. 

We may consider first a peculiar view, which might be called 
Animism of the lowest or most meagre degree. It is not perhaps 
new in the history of speculation, though it was not, I think, 
clearly formulated until recent years.^ 

It is allied to the view of Ostwald, Bechterew, and others,^ 
which regards consciousness as a form of energy that undergoes 
transformations to other forms and is generated by transforma- 
tions of the other forms of energy. It may perhaps be most 
easily described by saying that, like EpipJieiioiiicnalisni, it re- 
gards consciousness as generated by the physical processes of the 
brain, but (unlike Huxley's doctrine) conceives the elements of 
consciousness as forces that influence one another and, in turn, 
react upon the brain-processes. It might also be described as 
the combination of the notion of the " Actuelle-Seele " ^ with the 
belief in psycho-physical interaction. It sacrifices the advantages 
of Parallelism, namely, those which follow from the acceptance of 
a clean-cut mechanistic scheme of things, and involves many of 
the difficulties of Animism without bringing it important advan- 
tages. Its chief merit, and its only superiority to Epipheno- 
menalism, is that it finds a place, a function, and a raison d'etre 

^ It was advocated in my first publication touching on the psycho-physical 
question ("Mind," N.S., vol. vii.), and has more recently been urged by several 
writers, especially by Dr Archdall Raid (" Laws of Heredity," London, 19 lo) and 
by Miss E. B. M'Gilvary [" Jonrn. of Phil., Psychology and Sci. Method," 1910). 

2 See p. 130. 

^ Wundt's notion of the " Actuelle-Seele " (as consisting in the stream of 
consciousness composed of elements that causally interact with one another 
and synthesize themselves undergoing transformations in the process) differs 
from this view chiefly in that it denies any causal relation between the elements 
of the stream of consciousness and the brain-processes of which they are the 
invariable temporal concomitants. 



358 BODY AND MIND 

for consciousness as a factor in biological evolution, and avoids 
the absurdity of postulating effects which have no causes. 

A second type of animistic theory is that advocated by 
William James ^ and Prof Bergson. It was called by James " the 
transmission theory " of the function of the brain in relation to 
consciousness. It holds that consciousness is a stuff which is 
capable of being divided and compounded like putty or any plastic 
matter, its parts enduring or retaining their identity in the various 
aggregations into which they enter. It is conceived as existing 
independently of material organisms, either ''{a) in disseminated 
particles ; and then our brains are organs of concentration, organs 
for combining and massing these into resultant minds of personal 
form. Or it may exist {b) in vaster unities (absolute ' world- 
soul,' or something less) ; and then our brains are organs for 
separating it into parts and giving them finite form." ^ 

x^ccording to this view, then, the brain is the ground of our 
psychical individuality. Matter is regarded as " a mere surface- 
veil of phenomena, hiding and keeping back the world of genuine 
realities," ^ and our brains are regarded as translucent spots or 
systems of pores in this veil, whereby beams of conscious- 
ness " pierce through into this sublunary world." And all the 
beams thus transmitted by one brain are regarded as normally 
cohering to form a stream of personal consciousness, which swells 

^ " Human Immortality," IngersoU Lecture, 189S. The Animism of Bergson 
as expounded in his " Evolution Creatrice " is in many essential respects similar 
to James' view. But though Bergson has more fully elaborated this doctrine, I 
have chosen to present it in the form given it by James. Their formulations 
agree in the following essential points : both reject the claims of mechanism to 
rule in the organic world ; both regard all psychical existence as of the form 
of consciousness only ; both assume that consciousness exists independently of 
the physical world in some vast ocean or oceans of consciousness ; both maintain 
that the consciousness or psychical life of each organism is a ray from this source ; 
that the bodily organisation of each creature is that which determines individu- 
ality ; that the brain is a mechanism which lets through, or brings into operation 
in the physical world, a stream of consciousness which is copious in proportion 
to the complexity of organisation of the brain. 

^ James, op. cit., note 3. James distinguished these two views as alternatives 
in his IngersoU Lecture, but later ("Pluralistic Universe") he seems to have 
reahzed that they imply one another ; that if consciousness can be spht off from 
larger wholes, its fragments must also be capable of being compounded. Else- 
where he speaks of a cosmic sea or reservoir of consciousness in impersonal forms. 
James, in fact, recognized that the transmission theory implies the doctrine of 
mind-stufiE, the metaphysical notion that consciousness as we know it consists of 
compounded or aggregated atoms of mind-stuff. 

' James, op. cit., p. t,:^. 



CONCLUSION 359 

and grows rich, or contracts and grows thin and poor, according to 
the functional condition of the brain. 

This theory seems to me very unsatisfactory for the following 
reasons:^ (i) It is open to all the objections that are made 
against psycho-physical interaction, since it implies such inter- 
action and the rejection of the mechanistic dogma. (2) It 
is open also to all the objections to the notion of the compound- 
ing of consciousness, the notion that a number of elements or 
fragments of consciousness can cohere together to form a logical 
thought, or that a thought may be formed by the chipping off of 
a fragment of a larger whole of consciousness, and the notion also 
that each fragment of consciousness functions simultaneously as an 
element of larger and smaller aggregates.^ (3) Like Parallelism, it 
leaves the fundamental fact of psychical individuality completely 
obscure and unintelligible ; for we can see no reason in the 
nature of things, or of the hypothesis, why the several beams or 
elements of consciousness transmitted through any one brain 
should normally cohere to form the thoughts of one personality, 
while those transmitted through separate brains should remain 
separate. (4) In identifying mind with consciousness (i.e. making- 
consciousness coextensive with mind or soul and its operations) it 
holds out no prospect of aiding in the solution of the physiological 
problems that remain refractory to mechanical principles, and it 
would seem to necessitate the assumption of the operation in 
organisms of a second teleological factor other than consciousness. 
(5) It seems incapable of giving any intelligible account of the 
facts of memory.^ 

It seems, then, worth while to inquire why James, one of the 
most prominent exponents of this form of Animism, preferred it to 
what he called the soul-theory. The history of James' thought on 
this question, as revealed in his published works, is interesting and 
relevant to our discussion. James approached the study of the 
mind, in which he attained so pre-eminent a mastery, from the 
side of physiology, and, in accordance with the dominant physio- 

1 My very condensed statement of it inevitably fails to do justice to it, and 
the reader should consult the original sources. Mr Schiller's very readable 
" Riddles of the Sphinx" present a psycho-physical hypothesis which in some 
respects is allied to the "transmission theory." 

^ See p. 169. 

3 I cannot discover that Prof. Bergson has brought the theory of memory of 
the "Matiere et Memoire " into intelligible relation with the psycho-physical 
doctrine of the " Evolution Creatrice." 



36o BODY AND MIND 

logical teaching of that time, he identified thought and feeling 
and will with sensation ; and throughout his first great book ^ 
he endeavoured to build up a consistent account of our mental life 
on a sensationalistic basis. At the same time he rejected the 
mechanistic dogma and affirmed the reality of psycho-physical 
interaction ; he gave a brilliant and convincing refutation of 
the notion of the compounding of consciousness, and frankly 
recognized that the soul-theory seemed to him the necessary 
alternative to that doctrine. He affirmed the logical respecta- 
bility of the soul-theory, gave a sympathetic statement of it, and 
confessed " that to posit a soul influenced in some mysterious 
way by the brain-states and responding to them by conscious 
affections of its own, seems to me the line of least logical 
resistance, so far as we yet have attained." ^ Nevertheless, he 
did not accept the soul-theory, though he gave no reasons for 
his hesitation, unless his characterization of it as the doctrine of 
Scholasticism and of common sense can be regarded as such. In 
his later works he showed himself more decidedly opposed to 
the soul-theory. In the Ingersoll Lecture of 1898 he hardly 
mentioned it, but advocated the " transmission theory." And, in 
his Oxford lectures of 1908,^ he definitely rejected it in favour of 
the conception of a hierarchy of consciousnesses such as Fechner 
had dreamt of, the members of each level being conceived as 
formed by the compounding of lesser streams of consciousness 
of a lower level. In doing so, he recognized that he was re- 
pudiating his own demonstration of the illegitimacy of the notion 
of the compounding of consciousness, and explained that, after a 
long struggle with the problem, the magic of Prof. Bergson's attack 
upon the human intellect had given him courage to throw logic to 
the winds and to accept the notion of the compounding of con- 
sciousnesses in spite of its logical absurdity. He struggled in 
vain to reconcile with logical principles the notion that a 
consciousness can be at the same time both itself and an element 
or part of a different and more inclusive consciousness. " How 
can many consciousnesses be at the same time one consciousness ? 
How can one and the same identical fact experience itself so 
diversely ? The struggle was vain ; I found myself in an 
impasse. I saw that I must either forswear that ' psychology 
without a soul ' to which my whole psychological and Kantian 

1 " The Principles of Psychology." - " Principles," p. 181. 

^ " A Pluralistic Universe." 



CONCLUSION 361 

education had committed me — I must, in short, bring back 
distinct spiritual agents to know the mental states, now singly 
and now in combination, in a word, bring back Scholasticism and 
common sense — or else I must squarely confess the solution of the 
problem impossible, and then, either give up my intellectualistic 
logic, the logic of identity, and adopt some higher (or lower) form 
of rationality, or, finally, face the fact that life is logically irrational. 
Sincerely, this is the actual trilemma that confronts every one of 
us." 1 And James chose to give up logic and the soul, and to 
accept the Fechnerian conception. 

There can be no doubt that James, in making choice of this 
alternative, was greatly influenced, on the one hand, by the modern 
studies in psycho-pathology, which seemed to him to have shown 
that the normal stream of personal consciousness maybe split into 
two or more coexistent streams, and, on the other, by his studies of 
those experiences of mystics in which they seem to themselves to 
transcend the normal limits of individuality and to become one 
with some larger whole of consciousness." But he did not claim 
that these considerations compel us to this renunciation of our 
most fundamental logical principles. Rather he seemed driven 
to this renunciation by his strong objection to the soul-theory, 
which, as he so clearl}^ showed, is the only alternative to it. 
What, then, are the grounds of this objection put forward by 
James ? They are stated in less than two pages of large print ; 
and for the purpose of our inquiry it is so important to have 
these grounds fully before us that I quote the entire passage. 
"It is not for idle or fantastical reasons that the notion of the 
substantial soul, so freely used by common men and the more 
popular philosophies, has fallen upon such evil days, and has no 
prestige in the eyes of critical thinkers. It only shares the fate 
of other unrepresentable substances and principles. They are, 
without exception all so barren that to sincere inquirers they 
appear as little more than names masquerading — Wo die begriffe 
fehlen da stellt ein wort zur rechten zeit sich ein. You see no 
deeper into the fact that a hundred sensations get compounded 
or known together by thinking that a ' soul ' does the compound- 
ing than you see into a man's living eighty years by thinking of 
him as an octogenarian, or into our having five fingers by calling 
us pentadactyls. Souls have worn out both themselves and their 

^ " A Pluralistic Universe," p. 207. 

- " Varieties of Religious Experience," 1902. 



362 BODY AND MIND 

welcome, that is the plain truth. Philosophy ought to get the 
manifolds of experience unified on principles less empty. Like 
the word ' cause,' the word ' soul ' is but a theoretic stop-gap — it 
marks a place and claims it for a future explanation to occupy." 

" This being our post-humian and post-kantian state of mind, I 
will ask your permission to leave the soul wholly out of the pre- 
sent discussion and to consider only the residual dilemma. 
Some day, indeed, souls may get their innings again in philosophy 
— I am quite ready to admit that possibility — they form a category 
of thought too natural to the human mind to expire without 
prolonged resistance. But if the belief in the soul ever does 
come to life after the many funeral-discourses which humian and 
kantian criticism have preached over it, I am sure it will be only 
when some one has found in the term a pragmatic significance 
that has hitherto eluded observation."^ 

In spite of my profound admiration for William James, I am 
driven to exclaim — Could anything be more perverse ! On one 
page he tells us that the only alternatives to the acceptance of 
the soul-theory are either to give up our belief in logic, or to declare 
that life is logically irrational.^ On the next page he tells us that 
the conception of the soul is otiose, that it explains nothing, that it 
has no pragmatic significance and does not help us to any under- 
standing. But surely, if any hypothesis is so logically necessary 
that its rejection must involve the rejection of our belief in the 
most fundamental logical principles, it is, ipso facto, justified, 
and bears the highest possible credentials. Has any scientific 
hypothesis any better justification, or can any better one be 
conceived ? Why do we believe that the earth is round ? Surely 
only because to deny it would involve the mistrust of logical 
reason ! No one has directly perceived the earth as a round 
object. Why do we believe that the earth was at one time a fiery 
mass ; that it is not now a hollow shell ; or that the remote side of 
the moon, which no man has seen, is approximately spherical and 
is illuminated by the sun at new moon ? Why do we believe in 
those " unrepresentable principles and substances," the ether, energy, 
magnetic force, electricity, atoms, electrons ? These and many 
other things we believe in for the same good pragmatic reason, 
namely, that our intellect finds the conceptions of these things neces- 

^ " A Pluralistic Universe," p. 209. 

- Surely these are but two ways of stating one alternative, the radical mistrust 
of the intellectual powers of the human race. 



CONCLUSION 363 

sary for the building up of the conceptual scheme of things by 
means of which we seek to render intelligible the facts of immediate 
experience. If we choose to resign our belief in man's powers of 
reason, we may believe in the flatness of the earth, in perpetual 
motion, in the existence of atoms of mind-stuff, in the compound- 
ing of consciousnesses, or in any other absurdity. " But I can 
take no comfort in such devices for making a luxury of intellectual 
defeat. They are but spiritual chloroform. Better live on the 
ragged edge, better gnaw the file forever! " ^ Or — as a less desperate 
alternative — retain a modest confidence in human reason, and 
accept the hypothesis of the soul ! 

In the passage quoted above (page 362), James places the 
notion of the soul on a level, as regards pragmatic significance, 
with the notion of causation. I am very willing to accept the 
classification ; for no conception has proved of greater pragmatic 
value than that of cause. Wellnigh the whole of such superiority 
to savagery as our civilization can boast is due to our successful 
application of the conception of causation. 

If James had belonged to that group 01 high and dry 
methodists who frown on all hypotheses, and teach that the 
function of science and philosophy is not to explain facts or 
render them intelligible, but merely to describe them with the 
utmost accuracy, his position would be comprehensible. But he 
explicitly demands explanation and intelligibility, and, in order 
to explain certain results of " psychical research," himself pro- 
pounds the hypothesis of a cosmic reservoir of consciousness, or 
the existence in the universe of " a lot of diffuse mind-stuff, unable 
of itself to get mto consistent personal form, or to take permanent 
possession of an organism and yet always craving to do so." ^ 

I conclude, therefore, that the trans-mission theory, implying 
as it does the overthrow of human reason, encounters immense 
difficulties and gratuitously raises more problems than it solves, 
and that James' objections to the soul-theory were of the 
flimsiest, were in fact little more than the current prejudice in 
favour of that "psychology without a soul" to which, as he said, his 
whole psychological and Kantian education had committed him.^ 

^ James, " Principles," vol. i. p. 179. 

"Article on "Psychical Research," in the " American Magazine" for 1909, 
p. 588. 

' It seems necessary to insist in this connexion that agreement with conclu- 
sions of " common sense " or even of scholastic philosophy does not in itself 
suffice to render an hypothesis absurd or untenable. 



364 BODY AND MIND 

Those readers who prefer the soul-theory will perhaps bear with 
me a little longer, while I inquire how we may best conceive and de- 
scribe the soul in the light of the empirical evidence now available. 

First, let us see what negative assertions can be made with 
some confidence. We can say that the soul has not the essential 
attributes of matter, namely, extension (or the attribute of 
occupying space) and ponderability or mass ; for if it had these 
attributes it would be subject to the laws of mechanism ; and -it 
is just because we have found that mental and vital processes 
cannot be completely described and explained in terms of 
mechanism that we are compelled to believe in the co-operation 
of some non-mechanical teleological factor, and to adopt the 
hypothesis of the soul. 

The Scholastics and Cartesians have generally described the soul 
as an inextended immaterial substance. In doing so they meant 
not only to deny it the attributes of matter, which they defined as 
extended substance, but, in applying the term substance, they 
meant also to imply certain positive attributes, especially the attri- 
bute of permanence or indestructibility ; and, curiously enough, they 
seemed to believe that, by applying this word substance in their 
description of the soul, they guaranteed the immortality of human 
personality. Now, it is hardly necessary to say that wc cannot 
prove the immortality of the soul by this simple expedient. Nor 
can we accept the description of it as substance in the old 
scholastic sense of the word. In that old-fashioned sense of the 
word, substance- denoted a core or substratum underlying and 
distinct from all the attributes of a thing, which substratum might 
in principle remain unchanged as the identical substance though 
all its attributes were changed or stripped off it ; a sort of inert 
lay figure that might be dressed up in many garments. That 
is a notion which pretty nearly all moderns are agreed to 
reject ; for a thing can only be known through the effects or 
activites it exerts, and its capacities for exerting these effects are 
its attributes, and we can only conceive the thing as the sum of 
its attributes. But we may conceive the thing as possessing these 
capacities for action or influence, not only at the moments at 
which they are exerted, but also during periods in which they 
remain latent. A material thing or being is then a sum, not 
only, as J. S. Mill said, of " permanent possibilities of sensation," 
but also of enduring possibilities or capacities of definite kinds of 
action and reaction upon other material things. 



CONCLUSION 365 

In a similar way we may describe a soul as a sum of 
enduring capacities for thoughts, feelings, and efforts of deter- 
minate kinds. Since the word substance retains the flavour of 
so many controversial doctrines, we shall do well to avoid it as the 
name for any such sum of enduring capacities, and to use instead 
the word thing or being. We may then describe a soul as a being 
that possesses, or is, the sum of definite capacities for psychical 
activity and psycho-physical interaction, of which the most funda- 
mental are (i) the capacity of producing, in response to certain 
physical stimuli (the sensory processes of the brain), the whole 
range of sensation qualities in their whole range of intensities ; 

(2) the capacity of responding to certain sensation-complexes with 
the production of meanings, as, for example, spatial meanings ; 

(3) the capacity of responding to these sensations and these 
meanings with feeling and conation or effort, under the spur of 
which further meanings may be brought to consciousness in 
accordance with the laws of reproduction of similars and of 
reasoning ; (4) the capacity of reacting upon the brain-processes 
to modify their course in a way which we cannot clearly define, 
but which we may provisionally conceive as a process of guidance 
by which streams of nervous energy may be concentrated in a 
way that antagonizes the tendency of all physical energy to 
dissipation and degradation. 

These are the fundamental capacities of conscious activity that 
we may assign to the soul, and we may say that in the laws or 
uniformities that we can discover in these processes we may 
discern the laws or the nature of the soul ; and the view that the 
soul is this sum of psychical capacities we may express by saying 
that the soul is a psychic being. 

The Carterians' described the soul as a thinking being, using 
thinking (cogitatio) as the most inclusive term for what in modern 
terminology we call being conscious. But we cannot accept this 
description without reservation. Our evidence at present allows 
us to say only that the soul thinks or is conscious (realizes its 
capacities or potentialities) when interacting with some bodily 
organism ; psycho-physical interaction may be, for all we know, a 
necessary condition of all consciousness. For all the thinking or 
consciousness of which we have positive knowledge is of embodied 
minds or souls ; and a great mass of evidence goes to show that 
whatever prevents the body from playing its part in this process 
of psycho-physical interaction arrests the flow of consciousness, 



366 BODY AND MIND 

i.e. brings the soul's activities also to rest, at least so far as they 
are conscious activities. Rather than say that the soul is a 
thinking being, we must then say that it is a being capable 
of being stimulated to conscious activities through the agency of 
the body or brain with which it stands in relations of reciprocal 
influence. 

Further, we must maintain that the soul is in some sense a 
unitary being or entity distinct from all others ; for we found that 
prominent among the facts which compel us to accept the animistic 
hypothesis are the facts of psychical individuality, the fact that 
consciousness, as known to us, occurs only as individual coherent 
streams of personal consciousness, and all the facts summed up 
in the phrase " the unity of consciousness." We found that these 
facts remain absolutely unintelligible, unless we postulate some 
ground of this unity and coherence and separateness of individual 
streams of consciousness, some ground other than the bodily 
organisation. 

This conclusion seems to rule out the notion that the soul of 
man or of any complex organism may be compounded of the souls 
of lesser organisms, or of the cells of which the body is made up. 
But it does not rule out the possibility that more than one psychic 
being may be associated with one bodily organism. It may be 
that the soul that thinks in each of us is but the chief of a 
hierarchy of similar beings,^ and that this one alone, owing to the 
favourable position it occupies (I do not mean spatial position), is 
able to actualize in any full measure its capacities for conscious 
activity ; and it may be that, if the subordinated beings exercise 
in any degree their psychic capacities, the chief soul is able, by a 
direct or telepathic action, to utilize and in some measure control 
their activities. We may see in this possibility the explanation 
of those strange and bizzare phenomena which have been so 
zealously studied in recent years under the head of secondary or 
dual personality, and which constitute evidence that has seemed 
to many to justify the notion of a division or splitting of the mind 
of a human being into two minds.^ The animistic hypothesis 

1 I remind the reader of the metaphysical doctrine (of Leibnitz, Lotze, and 
others) that the body is in its real nature an organized system of beings of like 
nature with the soul. 

2 The cases of alternating personality are not in question here, but only 
the rarer cases of seemingly concurrent dual personality or co-consciousness. 
Almost all those who have treated of these cases have started out from the 
assumption that, if the two streams of consciousness and mental activity coexist, 



CONCLUSION 367 

may seek to explain also in this way the fact that the bodily 
organism of certain animals may be divided into two or more 
parts, each of which continues to lead indefinitely an independent 

they must be regarded as formed by the splitting of the normal stream of con- 
sciousness ; the uncritical acceptance of this assumption renders these writers 
incapable of impartially weighing the evidence. Now, if we examine the very 
full and careful description of one of the most striking of these cases, that of Sally 
Beauchamp (" The Dissociation of a PersonaHty," by Dr Morton Prince, London, 
^9'^3), we find that there were two or more alternating personalities, both of 
which were continuous with the original normal personality, and by the synthesis 
or combination of the memories of which the normal personality was restored. 
These alternating personalities may, therefore, properly be regarded as formed, 
not by the sphtting of the normal stream of consciousness, but by the alternation 
of two phases of the empirical self, or of the organic basis of personal consciousness, 
each of which brings back to consciousness only memories of experiences enjoyed 
during former periods of its dominance. 

But the most striking feature of the case was the existence of a personality 
(Sally by name) which dominated and controlled the whole organism at times, 
and claimed to be conscious, though incapable of expressing herseK (save in a 
fragmentary manner) in bodily movement, during the periods of dominance 
of the other personahties. This claim was supported (i) by the fact that Sally 
seemed to have knowledge of all or most of the experiences, even the dreams, 
reflections, and emotions of the other personahties ; claiming to become av/are 
of them in some immediate fashion, though regarding them always as not her 
own experiences, but as those of the other personahties ; (2) by the fact that 
during the dominance of these others, involuntary, forced, or automatic move- 
ments, sometimes speech or writing, expressing the personality of Sally, were 
sometimes made by the bodily organs ; which movements Sally claimed to 
have willed, when afterwards she came into full control ; (3) by the fact that 
the other personahties were hable to unaccountable inhibitions of the will, which 
also Sally claimed to have effected in some direct fashion. 

Now the point I wish to insist upon is this : there is in the whole very full 
account no evidence to support the view that Sally, the seemingly co-conscious 
personality, resulted from the division of the normal personahty. Rather there 
is positive evidence that she was not so formed ; she claimed to have existed 
before the time of the emotional shock which led to the alternation of phases 
of the original personahty, and (what is more important), when the normal 
personality was restored, this was effected by the recombination of the alternating 
phases, and there was no indication that Sally was in any sense synthesized 
within this normal and complete personality ; rather she gave indications from 
time to time of her continuance in a repressed and relatively inactive condition. 

I would put alongside this fact the foUowing remarks of Prof. Pierre Janet, 
who has had a very large experience of cases of this type, and to whose statements 
great weight must be assigned. After expressing the opinion (" L'Automatisme 
psychologique," p. 343) that, if in such cases of co-consciousness as he describes 
a complete cure were effected, the normal personahty would regain the memories 
of the co-conscious secondary personality, he adds, " I ought to say that I have 
never observed this return of the memory, and that this opinion is founded upon 
the examination of my schematic diagram and upon reasoning rather than upon 
experience. . . . I have never seen these hysterical persons recover after their 
apparent cure the memory of their second existences^ And he adds that he sup- 



368 BODY AND MIND 

existence and develops all the parts and functions of the complete 
organism. For we may hold that, as Lotze wrote, " Section would 
have cleft in two, not the soul of the polyp, but the corporeal bond 
that held together a number of souls, so as to hinder the individual 
development of each." ^ 

The unity of the soul does not necessarily imply that all 
impressions made upon it and all its activities must be combined 
in the stream of personal consciousness. It remains open to us 
to suppose that, as Prof Pierre Janet maintains, the bringing 
together or synthesizing of many impressions in the unitary 
field of attentive self-consciousness is only effected by the 
expenditure of psychical energy, the available quantity of which 
varies from time to time, and that the quantity of this energy is 
deficient in those states of " psychical poverty " (la misere psycho- 
logique) '■^ characterized by sub-conscious mental activities of an 
abnormal kind.^ 

We may, then, suppose that abnormal conditions of two distinct 
types are commonly confused together under the head of co- 
consciousness or subconscious activity. In the one type (of 
which Sally Beauchamp remains the best example) the co-conscious 
activities become so highly developed and organized that we can- 
not refuse to recognize them as the activities of an independent 
synthetic centre, a numerically distinct psychic being, which, 
owing to insufficient energy of control of the normally dominan 



poses, therefore, that, though they seemed cured to his experienced eye, they were 
nevertheless not completely cured. 

1 submit, therefore, that we have no sufficient ground for the assumption 
that the co-conscious personality is formed by splitting off from the normal 
personahty, that rather the facts justify the view that they are radically distinct. 
The facts may, therefore, be reconciled with the Animistic hypothesis by assuming 
that a normally subordinate psychic being obtains through the weakening of 
the control of the normally dominant soul an opportunity for exercising and 
developing its potentialities in an unusual degree. 

^ " Microcosmus " (Eng. trans.), vol. i. p. 154. 

2 Op. cit., p. 444. 

^ " Comme le disaient les anciens philosophes, etre c'est agir et creer, et la 
conscience, qui est au supreme degre une realite, est par la meme une activite 
agissante. Cette activite, si nous cherchons a nous representer sa nature, est 
avant tout une activite de synthese qui reunit des phenomenes donnes plus ou 
moins nombreux en un phenomene nouveau different des elements. C'est la 
une veritable creation, car, a quelque point de vue que Ton se place, la multiplicite 
ne contient pas la raison de 1' unite, et I'acte par lequel des element heterogenes 
sont reunis dans une forme nouvelle n'est pas donne dans les elements. . . . 
La conscience est done bien par elle-meme, des ses debuts, une activite de 
synthese" {op. cit., p. 484). 



CONCLUSION 369 

centre, escapes from its position of subordination and repression, 
and, not without a prolonged struggle/ actualizes and develops 
in an abormal degree its latent capacities. In the other type we 
have to do with a mere insufficiency of synthetic energy of the 
one centre, from which results a temporary narrowing of the 
field of attentive consciousness, and the automatic or semi- 
mechanical functioning of parts of the psycho-physical organiza- 
tion. Into this class would fall all or most of the cases of 
functional anesthesia and most of the instances of post-hypnotic 
obedience to suggestion in spite of lack of all conscious memory 
of the nature of the suggestion given. 

The capacities and functions enumerated above seem to me 
the minimum that can be attributed to the soul. If we asign it 
these, while denying it any share in memory (regarding all 
mental retention as conditioned by the nervous system), we have 
a peculiar view of the soul, which might be concisely expressed 
by saying that the soul conditions the forms of mental activity, 
while the bodily processes (through the senses and the mechanically 
associated memory-traces of the brain) supply the content of con- 
sciousness. According to this view ^ the soul is to be regarded as 

^ The feature of the Beauchamp case which most strongly supports this 
view is, perhaps, the occurrence of sustained and seemingly very real conflicts 
of will between Sally and the alternating phases of Miss B.'s personality ; these, 
if we accept the description given (and it is perhaps permissible to say here that 
the good faith and scientific competence of the reporter of the case are indisput- 
able), were no mere conflicts of opposed impulses, such as anyone of us may 
experience, but conflicts of the volitions of two organized and very different 
personahties. Another fact brought out clearly in the description of this case, 
one very difficult to reconcile with the view that Sally was merely a fragment 
of the •normal personality, is that Sally's memory was more comprehensive than 
that of the normal personality, since it included all or most of the latter's ex- 
periences as well as her own. Now, in what manner or under what form Sally 
became aware of the thoughts and emotions of Miss B. remains one of the 
obscurest and most interesting of the problems presented by this and similar 
cases. For Sally seemed to become directly aware of these thoughts and emo- 
tions and yet to know them as Miss B.'s, and to regard them in a very objective 
manner. I may say that, thanks to the kindness of Dr Morton Prince, I have 
had the opportunity of closely questioning upon this point a secondary personal- 
ity very similar to Sally, and, though she seemed highly intelhgent and willing 
to reply to the best of her ability, it was impossible to obtain any light on 
this problem. I have discussed the case of Sally at more length in the Proc. 
S. P. R., vol. xix. 

^ This is the view sympathetically presented, if not actually accepted, in 
James' "Principles of Psychology" and defended by myself in my "Primer of 
Physiological Psychology." James, after expounding the laws of association and 
reproduction, wrote, " The schematism we have used is, moreover, taken immedi- 
ately from the analysis of objects with their element ax y parts, and only extended 

24 



370 BODY AND MIND 

undergoing no development in the course of the individual's life. 
Rather, the soul is a system of capacities which are fully present 
as latent potentialities from the beginning of the individual's life ; 
and these potentialities are realized or brought into play only 
in proportion as the brain-mechanisms became developed and 
specialized. The mental differences exhibited by any person at 
different stages of his life would thus be wholly due to the 
developmental and degenerative changes of his brain-structure. 
And it would follow also that the mental differences between one 
person and another may be, and presumably are, wholly conditioned 
by differences of brain-structure. It would follow also that just 
as we should have to conceive the soul of any human being as an 
unchanging system of potentialities at all stages of the individual 
life, mental development being purely development of the bodily 
mechanisms by which the psychical potentialities are brought 
more fully into play, so we might conceive the mental 
differences between man and animals of all levels as wholly due 
to differences of kind and degree of bodily organization ; the 
souls of all animals, from the lowliest upward to man, would have 
the same potentialities, and these potentialities would be actual- 
ized in proportion to the degree of evolution of the bodily 
organization. Mental evolution would thus be regarded as con- 
sisting wholly in progressive evolution of bodily organization ; a 
view which is implied also in the "transmission theory" of James 
and Bergson.^ 

by analogy to the brain. And yet it is only as incorporated in the brain that 
such a schematism can represent anything causal. This is, to my mind, the con- 
clusive reason for saying that the order of presentation of the mind's materials is 
due to cerebral physiology alone. . . . The effects of interested attention and 
volition remain. These activities seem to hold fast to certain elements, and by 
emphasizing them and dwelMng on them, to make their associates the only ones 
which are evolved. This is the point at which an anti-mechanical psychology 
must, if anywhere, make its stand in deahng with association. Everything else 
is pretty certainly due to cerebral laws " (" Principles," i. p. S94)- 

And again he wrote: "The soul presents nothing herself; creates nothing; 
is at the mercy of the material forces for all possibilities ; but amongst these 
possibilities she selects, and by reinforcing one and checking others, she figures 
not as an ' epiphenomenon,' but as something from which the play gets moral 
support" [op. cit., ii. p. 584). That this view is not consistent with James's 
transmission theory and later utterances seems to me clear. • 

^ Lotze expressed himself as follows on this view of the essential similarity 
of all souls : " What causes determine the various levels of development reached 
by the various races of animated beings ? Now here it was a possible opinion 
that all souls are homogeneous in nature, and that the combined influence of 
all external conditions, as well those whose seat is the organization of the body 



CONCLUSION 371 

This view of the soul would satisfy all the empirical evidence, 
except that which points to " memory " as being, in part at least, 
immaterially conditioned. But, though this view is compatible with 
the belief that the soul survives the death of the body, and even 
with a belief in its immortality, it signally fails to satisfy those 
demands of our moral and aesthetic nature which have in all ages 
inclined the mass of men to believe in the life-after-death. In 
accordance with these demands the popular view has always held 
that all " memory," all mental retention and reproduction, all 
mental and moral growth, is rooted in the soul, that, in short, 
the soul is the bearer of all that is essential to the developed 
personality of each man. For the demand for a future life 
has two principal sources (beyond the promptings of personal affec- 
tion and the mere personal dislike of the prospect of extinction), 
namely, the desire that the injustices of this life may be in some 
way made good, and the hope that those highest products of 
evolution, the personalities built up by long sustained moral and 
intellectual effort, shall not wholly pass away at the death of 
the body. And the survival of a soul which bears nothing 
of that which distinguishes one personality from another, 
one which bears no marks of the experiences it has undergone in 
its embodied life, and enjoys no continuity of personal memory, 
would satisfy neither this desire nor this hope. But the popular 
view, though it has been maintained in modern times by Lotze, a 
philosopher of the first rank, cannot be reconciled with the fact 
that the make-up of human personality includes many habits that 
are unquestionably rooted in the structure of the nervous system. 
It conflicts also with all the large mass of evidence which indicates 
the dependence of all the sensory content of consciousness, all 
sensation and all imagery on the integrity of the brain. 

If we accept the hypothesis of the dual conditions of memory 
set forth and defended in Chapter XXIV., we are led by it to a 
conception of the soul intermediate between these two extreme 
views, that on the one hand which denies to the soul all develop- 
as those which supply the seat and issues of life, is the cause of the definite 
psychical development of each species, in one case of the inferiority of the 
animal kingdom, in the other of the superiority of human civilization. We did 
not feel oui'selves justified in decidedly rejecting this opinion ; on the contrary, 
one cannot help following its attempts at explanation with interest, for un- 
doubtedly they are to a great extent justified" (" Microcosmus," Eng. trans., i. 
p. 643). __ 



372 BODY AND MIND 

ment and therefore all that constitutes personality, and on the other 
hand that popular view which ascribes all development of mental 
power and character to the persistence of psychical modifications. 
For though, according to that hypothesis, all habits belong to the 
body, the soul does undergo a real development, an enrichment of 
its capacities ; and, though it is not possible to say just how much of 
what we call personality is rooted in bodily habit and how much in 
psychical dispositions,^ yet it is open to us to believe that the soul, 
if it survives the dissolution of the body, carries with it some large 
part of that which has been gained by intellectual and moral 
effort ; and though the acceptance of the view we have suggested 
as to the essential part played by the body in conditioning the 
sensory content of consciousness, would make it impossible to 
suppose that the surviving soul could enjoy the exercise of thought 
of the kind with which alone we are familiar, yet it is not incon- 
ceivable that it might find conditions that would stimulate it to 
imageless thought (possibly conditions of direct or telepathic 
communication with other minds) or might find under other 
conditions (possibly in association with some other bodily 
organism) a sphere for the application and actualization of the 
capacities developed in it during its life in the body.^ 

Before bringing this long inquiry to an end, it is necessary to 
touch on the very obscure and difficult problem of the part played 
by the soul in the development of the body and the control of the 
organic functions. We have seen that many of the thinkers of 
earlier ages regarded chiefly these biological functions in con- 
sidering the nature and activities of the soul ; and we have seen 
that there has appeared and on the whole has increasingly 
predominated a tendency to separate these from the distinctively 
mental functions, and to ascribe the vital and the mental functions 
to distinct principles, to the soul and to the spirit respectively, 
or to the vital force and to the soul or mind. Among those 
modern writers who have continued to accept the notion of the 
soul, this tendency has culminated in the view, first definitely 

^ It must be admitted that the distinction appears especially difficult on the 
side of the voUtional and emotional developments of personality. 

2 I venture to throw out to those who are interested in the problems of 
" psychical research " the suggestion that in this hne of thought may be found 
the explanation of the fragmentariness, the seeming triviality, and the incon- 
sistencies of so many of those " automatic movements " which claim to be 
expressions of surviving personalities, defects which are generally felt to be a 
serious difficulty in the way of accepting these expressions as what they claim 
to be. 



CONCLUSION 373 

propounded by Descartes and in more recent times best repre- 
sented by Lotze, which regards all bodily processes, except those 
of the central nervous system, as wholly withdrawn from direct 
psychical influences, and as governed by purely mechanical 
principles. 

But we cannot accept this position, for we have found reason 
to believe (Chapter XVI.) that the bodily processes, especially 
those of growth and repair, are not susceptible of purely 
mechanical explanation. If, then, we deny to the soul or thinking 
principle all part in these bodily processes, we shall have to 
postulate some second and distinct teleological factor operative in 
organisms. The principle of economy of hypothesis, therefore, 
directs us to attempt to conceive that the soul may be operative 
in the guidance of bodily growth, either directly or by means of 
a general control exercised by it over some system of subordinate 
psychic agents. 

Lotze rejected the view we are considering for two reasons, 
first, because in the adult human being all the direct interactions 
of soul and body seem to be confined to certain parts of the 
brain ; secondly, because we are not normally conscious of 
exercising any control over the body, otherwise than in the 
production of voluntary movements through the contractions of 
the skeletal muscles. These objections may be partially answered 
or diminished by the following considerations. The lowliest 
animal organisms exhibit no specialization of organs and tissues ; 
and whatever psychic powers they enjoy must be exercised equally 
in or through and upon all parts of the body ; and it is not until 
in ascending the evolutionary scale we come upon animals of 
very considerable complexity, that we find a centralized nervous 
system which we must suppose to be the organ specially con- 
cerned in psycho-physical interactions. And even in the verte- 
brate phylum we find good reason for believing that in the lower 
members the psychical functions are distributed throughout all 
parts of the central nervous system, at least, and that only 
gradually, with the increasing specialization of the brain, do they 
become more and more restricted to its higher levels. 

It is, then, reasonable to believe that in this respect, as in so 
many others, the human and higher animal organisms recapitulate 
in their individual development the history of the evolution of the 
race. If we take this view, we may believe that in the early 
stages of bodily development, during which the main lines of the 



374 BODY AND MIND 

bodily structure are laid down, the direct influence of the soul 
makes itself felt throughout all parts of the body as a controlling 
power, and that only gradually, as the specialization of the tissues 
progresses, it becomes circumscribed and confined to higher levels 
of the central nervous system. These psychic operations of 
embryonic life may well be in some sense conscious ; but we can 
hardly expect to have any power of recollecting them, seeing 
that we consciously remember little or nothing of the experiences 
of early childhood, although in those early years we make a 
greater volume of acquisitions than in any later period. And 
we must not forget that, even when the early years are past, and 
all the bodily organs have been developed to their full size, our 
mental life still exercises a very considerable influence upon the 
bodily form, moulding our features and, to a less extent, our 
general structure and bearing to the more adequate expression of 
our characters. 

It is in harmony with this view that the lower vertebrates, 
when deprived of the brain, exhibit more spontaneity and adapta- 
bility of movement than the higher members of the group ; that 
the lower animals exhibit a much greater power of repair and 
regeneration after injury or ablation of parts of their bodies, a 
power which is reduced to its minimum in man ; and that in 
every species this power of repair and of rectification of disturb- 
ances of the normal growth of the body seems to be greater, the 
earlier the stage of development at which such disturbances are 
inflicted. 

To the other objection to the notion of control of growth 
by psychical influences, namely, that we are not conscious of 
exerting any such control, no great importance can be attached in 
view of the modern demonstrations of the large range and scope of 
subconscious processes, processes which imply intelligence and yet 
find no expression in consciousness that can be introspectively 
seized. Lotze himself recognized in several connexions the 
necessity of postulating psychical activities that remain uncon- 
scious or subconscious, though forming essential links in the 
chain of psychical process. And, since he wrote, evidence of the 
great extent of such processes has accumulated rapidly. The 
clearest of such evidence is perhaps that afforded by automatic 
speech and writing ; but every successful experiment in post- 
hypnotic suggestion affords similar evidence. Successful thera- 
peutic suggestions and others that effect definite tissue changes 



CONCLUSION 375 

are especially significant in the present connexion ; for in all 
such cases we have definite evidence of control of bodily pro- 
cesses which, though unconsciously effected, must be regarded as 
psychical. Of the limits of this power of mental control over 
the organic processes of the body we are altogether ignorant, and 
new evidence, much of it ill-reported and therefore valueless, but 
much of it above suspicion, repeatedly warns us against setting 
up any arbitrary limit to what may be effected in this way. 

The view that the soul, even in the human adult, may exercise 
extensive vegetative functions finds som.e support in the following 
considerations. All routine bodily functions may be regarded as 
habits or as closely allied in nature to habits. And, if there is 
any truth in what was said above as to the psychical control of 
the growth of the embryo, we may regard each routine function 
of the body as originally acquired and fixed, like the motor habit 
of the skeletal system, under conscious psychical guidance. Now, 
though our motor habits or secondarily automatic movements 
undoubtedly imply the existence of well-organized systems of 
neurons, there is some ground for saying that they never become 
purely mechanical processes, but that rather they always retain 
something of the character of psycho-physical processes. For, first, 
they are initiated, controlled, and sustained by volition ; even so 
thoroughly ingrained a habit as the movements of the legs in 
walking continues (as was pointed out in Chapter XXIII.) not 
merely as the repetition of a self-sustaining mechanical sequence, 
but in virtue of the intention or vplition to walk, which continues 
to be effective, even when the attention is wholly withdrawn from 
the process. Secondly, the least disturbance or obstruction of a 
habitual movement causes the process to spring back into full 
consciousness, thereby showing that the soul has, as it were, its 
hand upon the process, ready at any moment to intervene and con- 
sciously effect the adjustment of the process required by the 
unusual situation ; at the least we feel, however obscurely, an 
impulse, an unrest, until the obstruction is overcome or the 
adjustment achieved. 

The same is obviously true of those old racial habits by which 
our organic life is so largely regulated, e.g. our respiratory move- 
ments. Of these movements, so long as they go on gently and 
smoothly, we remain unconscious ; they seem to be purely 
mechanical. But let there arise any obstruction or mal-adjustment 
of the processes, and we become acutely aware of them ; they 



376 BODY AND MIND 

become conscious and distinctly volitional processes ; and if the 
obstruction is serious, as in an attack of asthma, our whole 
psychical activity becomes concentrated in the effort to main- 
tain and reinforce the process, to the almost complete exclusion 
from consciousness of all other things. In this respect then 
these processes closely resemble our secondarily automatic move- 
ments, and there is nothing fanciful or improbable in the view that, 
like these, they are habits which have been built up under psychical 
guidance, but at an early period of life of which no recollection 
is possible. These organic hereditary habits form, then, a link 
which connects the habits, of whose formation under psychical 
guidance we retain a distinct memory, with other routine processes 
of the body, the acquirement of which we cannot recollect ; 
and analogy justifies us in maintaining the possibility that these 
also have not been established without psychical control.^ 
Biologically regarded, the function of mind is the effecting of 
new adjustments of the bodily processes ; consciousness plays its 
part only in the process of adjustment, and the more completely 
is the adjustment effected, the more completely is the process 
withdrawn from consciousness ; hence the routine processes of our 
bodies normally find but very obscure expression in conscious- 
ness, contributing only to that vague background which is usually 
called the coencesthesia. 

An alternative to this view would consist in adopting the 
conception that each complex organism comprises (or consists 
of) a system of psychic beings of like nature with the soul, but 
subordinated to it ; it might then be held that each such being is 
a centre of a partially independent psychical control of some part 
of the organic processes. 

Lastly, I would maintain that if the soul is to be taken 
seriously as a scientific hypothesis, we shall have to face the 
question of its part in heredity and of its place in the scheme of 
organic evolution. I do not propose to attempt any speculation 
on these extremely difficult and obscure problems, but merely 
to point to them as rising above the scientific horizon. We 

^ It should be remembered also in this connexion that in many of the lower 
animals instinctive behaviour is so intimately interwoven with processes of 
structural development and modification, that it is impossible to draw any sharp 
line between them. As a single illustration of the facts I have in mind, I remind 
the reader of the process of "autotomy" observed among various species of 
arthropods ; this consists in shedding a limb or appendage by means of violent 
muscular action, 



CONCLUSION 377 

have found reason to believe that the germ-cell, by the growth 
and repeated division of which the body of each organism is 
generated, cannot contain material dispositions that shall suffice 
to determine in purely mechanical fashion the course of the 
development of the complex organism with all its myriad specific 
characters and its personal and family peculiarities. How is the 
teleological immaterial factor, which we are driven to conceive as 
controlling the development, related to the parent forms, each of 
which contributes its share to the determination of the nature of 
the new organism ? In face of this tremendous problem, I will 
only say that to me it seems easier to believe that two souls may 
somehow co-operate in giving origin to a new one, than that two 
machines of incredible complexity and delicacy of constitution 
should combine (in the fusion of male and female germ-plasms) to 
form a new one, in which half the parts of the one parent machine 
become intricately combined by a purely mechanical process with 
half the parts of the other in a structure which minutely reproduces 
the essential features common to both, as well as many of the 
individual peculiarities of either one. 

As regards the evolutionary problem, I would say that, if 
heredity is conditioned, not mechanically by the mere structure 
of the germ-plasm, but by the teleological principle, it follows that 
the factors which have produced the evolution of species must 
have operated on and through this principle. Is it possible that 
the phrase " the soul of a race " is something more than a 
metaphor? That all that wonderful stability in complexity 
combined with gradual change through the ages, which Weismann 
attributes to the hypothetical germ-plasm, is in reality the attribute 
of an enduring psychic existent of which the lives of individual 
organisms are but successive manifestations.^ However the 

^ Its recognition of the continuity of all life is the great merit of Prof. Berg- 
son's theory of creative evolution ; its failure to give any intelligible account of 
individuality is its greatest defect. I venture to think that the most urgent 
problem confronting the philosophic biologist is the construction of a theory of 
life which will harmonise the facts of individuality with the appearance of the 
continuity of all life, with the theory of progressive evolution, and with the facts of 
heredity and bi-parental reproduction. By conceiving the animating principle 
of each organism as but relatively individual, as a bud from the tree of life, all 
of whose parts draw their energies from a common stem and root, it seems pos- 
sible dimiy to foreshadow a synthesis of the Animism of James and Bergson 
with the hypothesis discussed in these concluding paragraphs. To any reader 
familiar with the works of Samuel Butler it will be apparent that the conception 
which I am attempting vaguely to foreshadow is allied to the biological doctrines 



378 BODY AND MIND 

continuity of psychical constitution of succeeding generations of 
a species, a stock, or a family is maintained, it seems not 
improbable that the experience of each generation modifies in 
some degree the psychic constitution of its successors. The 
Neo-Darwinians have denied that any such modification takes 
place, chiefly because it seems impossible that such experiences 
should impress themselves upon the structure of the germ-plasm. 
But if the structure of the germ-plasm "is not the only link 
between the generations, this positive objection to the Lamarckian 
principle disappears ; and we are free to accept the mass of 
evidence which points to some partial transmission of the effects 
of experience. Such modification of the hereditary basis would 
be least in respect of those characters which have long been 
established in the race and are least susceptible to modification 
in the individual by psycho-physical activities ; among these 
would be all the specific bodily characters and all the fundamental 
forms of psychical activity. It would be greatest in respect to 
those more recently acquired mental characters which are the 
peculiar property of man ; and it is just these characters, such as 
mathematical, musical, and other artistic talents, and the capacity 
for sustained intellectual and moral effort, that seem to exhibit the 
clearest indications of the effects of experience and of psychical 
effort, cumulative from generation to generation. 

I will illustrate the conception of the evolutionary process 
that I have in mind by reference to a single psychical capacity, • 
namely, our capacity of spatial apprehension. Whether or no 
space and spatial relations be objectively real, it seems to me 
quite indisputable that Kant and Lotze (among many others) 
were in the right in regarding the capacity of spatial apprehension 
as an innate power of the mind, which awaits only the touch of 
experience to bring it into operation. Space in the terminology 
used in these pages, is a meaning rooted in an enduring psy- 
chical disposition,^ a disposition which, like others that we are 

of his earlier works, but not to the Hylozoism to which he inclined in his later 
years. 

^ It has been argued in Chapter XXI. that no system of neural elements, how- 
ever complex, can be the sufficient ground of the capacity of spatial conception. 
But, even if we put aside those objections and adopted Herbert Spencer's view 
of the conditions of spatial conception as some immensely coraplex inherited 
system of associated nerve-cells, the impossibihty of this view would force itself 
upon us again when we sought to conceive how this enormously complex system 
could be hereditarily transmitted by means of the structure of the germ-plasm. 



CONCLUSION 379 

constantly building up and extending as experience enriches the 
meanings that we have made our own, has been elaborated and 
fixed by the experience of countless generations, but which 
nevertheless may be capable of still further development. 

According to this view then, not only conscious thinking, but 
also morphogenesis, heredity, and evolution, are psycho-physical 
processes. All alike are conditioned and governed by psychical 
dispositions that have been built up in the course of the experi- 
ence of the race. So long as the psycho-physical processes in 
which they play their part proceed smoothly in the routine fashion 
proper to the species, they go on unconsciously or subconsciously. 
But whenever the circumstances of the organism demand new 
and more specialized adjustment of response, their smooth 
automatic working is disturbed, the corresponding meanings are 
brought ' to consciousness and by conscious perception and 
thinking and striving the required adjustment is effected. 



INDEX 



Abiogenesis, 233 

" Actuelle Seele," 135, 357 

Esthetic feeling, 315, 331 

Albertus Magnus, 33 

Alcmsson, 37 

Alexander of Aphrodisias, 33 

Alogical arguments for Monism, 144 

Amoeba, 258 

Anaxagoras, 15 

Anaximenes, 12 

Animal behaviour, 319 

Animalism, 4 

Animism, leading representatives, 204 

compatible with Monism, 192 

, four types of, 357 

Apollo, cult of, 1 1 

Aquinas, 33, 35 

Aristotle, 20 

Arrhenius on origin of life, 231 

Association-psychology, no, 282, 301 

Augustine, 32 

Automatism, secondary, 276 

Automaton theories, 126 

Avenarius, 180 

Averroes, 33 

Bain, Alex., 84 

Balaban on memory, 337 

Baldwin, J. M. , on organic selection, 249 

Bateson, W., 250 

Beauchamp, Sally, 367, 369 

Bechterew, 130, 355 

Bell, SirC, 105 

Beneke, 82 

Bergson, H., 84 

on Neo-Darwinism, 248 

on intellect, 221 

on memory, 333 

, his psycho-physic, 358 

Berkeley, Bishop, 64, 69, 71, 181 
Binet, A., on memory, 336 
Binocular vision, 289 

Biology and physics, 216 
Biran, Maine de, 83 
Blindness, functional, 291, 351 
Blumenbach, 81 
Boerhave, 97 
Bohn, G. B., 259 
Borelli, 97 
Boyle, 89 

Bradley, F. H., 85 
Bramwell, Milne, 353 
Bruno, Giordano, 38 
Biichner, L., 98 



Busse, L., 83, 268 

Butler, Samuel, on heredity, 247 

Cabanis, 83 

Capitulation of philosophy to physics, 190 

Carpenter, W. B., 287 

Causation and teleology, 176 

Charles, R. H., on Hebrew beliefs, 7, 30 

Christian theology ■axi^S. pneiuna, 28 

Clifford, W. K., 91, 136 

Co-consciousness, 366 

, two types of, 368 

Cold and heat, 217 

Comte, 84 

Conation and guidance, 279 

and persistence, 326 

Condillac, 74 
Composite mind, 116 
Compounding of consciousness, 169 
Conservation of energy, 92 

not an axiom, 216 

Continuity of evolution, 142, 320 

of neural process, 217 

Corresponding points, 289 
Crawley, E. A., 4 

Creative reason of Aristotle, 23 
" Creative synthesis," 307 
Crookes, Sir W., on life, 253 
Cross-correspondences, 349 
Curiosity, instinct of, 266 

DEMONS, 10 
Darwin, Charles, 119 

, Francis, 246 

Deism, 89 

De la Mettrie, 94 

Delboeuf, 353 

Delphic oracle, 10 

Democritus, 15 

Descartes, 49 

Diogenes, 12 

Dionysiac cult, 1 1 

Discontinuous variation, 250 

Dissipation of energy in organisms, 245 

Dissociation, mental, 118 

"Divine Assistance," doctrine of, 34 

Double aspect, limited truth of, 219 

Douglas, A. H., 39 

Driesch, H., 81, 268 

on restitution, 241 

on non-mechanical agency, 214 

Dualism of philosophy and science, 189 

Ebbinghaus, H., on unity of conscious- 
ness, 281 

38t 



382 



BODY AND MIND 



Ebbinghaus, H. , on memory, 332 

Eidola, 16 

Eleusinian mysteries, 1 1 

Elysian fields, 9 

Embryology and mechanism, 241 

Empedocles, 15 

Energetics, 130 

Epicurus, 26 

Epigenesis, 77 

Epiphenomenalism, 126 

examined, 149 

Evolution, psycho-physics of, 377 

of spacial perception, 378 

Fechner, G. T., 80, 137 

on day-view, 142 

on psycho- physical continuity, 294 

on future life, 195 

Feeling-tone, 313 

and Darwinism, 324 

Flournoy, Th., 118 
Foster, Sir M. , 45 
Freud, S., 327 

Fusion of sensations, 292, 299 
Future life and Parallelism, 197 

and morality, 203 

and soul-theory, 372 

Galen, 37 

Galileo, 47 

Gall, 1 01 

Gassendi, 47 

Geulincx, 53 

Ghost-soul, 3 

God, a mechanical, 191 

Gregory of Nyassa, 32 

Guidance without work, 212 

Habit, law of, no 

and memory, 333 

Hades, 8 

Haldane, J. S., on mechanism, 190, 236 

Haller, 9, 97, 100 

Hamilton, Sir W., 84 

Hanna, Mr, case of, 345 

Hartley, 84, no 

Harvey, W., 49, 96 

Hartmann, Ed. von, 1 1 7, 288 

Head, H., 265 

Flebrew Animism, 7 

Hegel, 79 

Helmholtz, von, 92 

Helmont, van, 44, 96 

Heraclitus, 13 

Herbart, J. F., 81 

Hering, E., on heredity, 247 

Heredity, psycho-physics of, 377 

Hesiod's golden age, 10 

Hobbes, 59 

Hodgson, Shadworth, 85, 127 

Hoernle, R. F. A., 304 

Hofifding, H., on Middle Ages, 28 

on Spinoza, 59 

Holbach, 74, 95 



Homeric Animism, 8 
Hume, 67, 71 

Huxley, T. H., no, 127, 151 
Hylozoism in Greece, 15 
Hypnotism, 351 
Hypothesis, function of, 218 

Idealism and materialism, 151 

and psycho-physics, 179 

Identity hypothesis, 132, 133 
Immaterial substance, 32 
Immortality, Greek, 11 

, collective, 40 

Individuality, 163 
Infra-consciousness, 172 
Instinct in man, 264 
Instinctive action, 262 

Interaction, inconceivability of, 206, 209 
Introjection, 180 
_IoflLaJL£]}ikgaElhers, 12 

AMES, Yi 

on feeling, 322 

on psychic fringe, 302 

on transmission-theory, 358 

on soul-theory, 370 

Janet, Pierre, on dual personality, 367 
Jennings, H., 259 
Jerome, St, 29 
Jones, E. C., 184 
Joule, 92 

Kant, 74 

, definition of soul, 75 

and parallelism, 76 

on immortality, 348, 198 

, dualism of, 183 

on moral consciousness, 200 

on interaction, 207 

, problem not solved by, 182 

on inner sense, 159 

Kayans, 2, 343 

Keatinge, W. M. , 343 

Kelvin, 90, 231, 253 

Kepler, 47 

Knowledge and immediate awareness, 222 

Kries, J. von, on memory, 332 

Kiilpe, O., 83 

Ladd, G. T., 85 
Lamarck, 1 19 
Lamarckism, 246 
Lang, A., 4 
Lange, F. A., 26, 37, 151 

• on idealism, 184 

Laplace, 90 

Larmor, Sir J., 253 

Leibnitz, 53 • 

Lens of Triton regenerates, 240 

Lewes, G. H., on lonians, 12, 15 

on psychical unity, 288 

Lloyd Morgan, 120, 142, 249 
Localisation of cerebral functions, 102 
Locke, 61 



INDEX 



383 



Locus of psychical action, 226 
Lodge, Sir O., on life, 253 
Loeb, J., on tropism, 259 
Logic and mechanism, 175 
Lotze, R. H., 82, loi 

on interaction, 207 

on seat of soul, 300 

of interaction, 225 

on atomism, 284 

on unity of consciousness, 285 

on animal division, 368 

Lucretius, 36 

and adaptation, 37 

Mach, E., on mechanism, 88, 211 

on incompleteness, 193 

Machines and organisms, 244 

Malebranche, 53 

Mallock, W. H., 189 

Marett, R. R., 4 

Marshall, H. R., on feeling, 322 

Materialism, Greek, 16, 59, 98, 129 

, advantages of, 144 

Maxwell, Clerk, 211, 253 
Mayer, R., 92 
M'Gilvary, E. B., 357 
M'Intyre, J. L., 42 
Meaning, 175, 269, 303, 305 

and sensation, 310 

Medium of composition, 2S7 
Memory and brain traces, II5j 33° 
Mendelism, 250 
Mental chemistry, 2S2 
Mercier, C. , 91 
Merz, T., 80, 90 

on vitalism, 252 

Meyer, M., on feeling, 323 

Metaphysics and Animism, 124 

Mill, J. S., 84, 282 

Mind-stuff, 136 

Mitchell, T. W., 353 

Mohamedan philosophy, 33 

Moleschott, 98 

Monism, verbal solution by, 193 

Monopsychism, 39 

Montaigne, 41 

Montesquieu, 74 

Morgan, T. H., 240 

Morphogenesis and mechanism, 240 

Mozart, 315 

Miiller, G. E., 333 

Miiller, Joh., 98 

Multiple personality, 300, 345 

Munsterberg, H., 155, 201 

Mutation, 250 

Myers, F. W. H., 85 

Mysticism, 361 

Natorp on Plato, i^ 
Neo-Darwinism, 119, 234, 246 
Neo-Platonism, 29 
Neo-Vitalism, 252 
Neural association, 339 



Nevv'ton, 89 
Nunn, P., 215 

Objects of higher orders, 316 
Occasionalism, 53 
Organic selection, 249, 254 
Orphic cult, 11 
Ostwald, W., 130 

Pain, 312 

Pantheism, Stoic, 26 

Paracelsus, 38 

Paradox of Fechner, 291 

Parallelism, psycho- physical, 131 

implies Pantheism, 194 

, leading exponents of, 204 

examined, 155 

, phenomenalistic, 132 

Paramcecium, 258 
Paul, St, on soul, 30 
Paulsen, F., 134, 145 

on Kant, 75 

on future life, 200 

on possibilities, 223 

Pearson, K. , 88 

Peckham, Dr and Mrs, 262 

Persistent effort, 270 

Personality, dual, 366 

Philo, 30 

Physical, definition of, 217 

science still developing, 216 

Physicists on life, 253 
Physiology founded, 44 

and mechanism, 236 

Plasticity of nerve, 275 

Plato, 17 

Pleasure and association, 320 

Plotinus, 31 

Pneuma, 26, 28, 30 

Podmore, F., 350 

Pollock, SirF., on Spinoza, 159 

Pomponazzi, 39 

Pontifical cell, 288 

Post-Homeric Animism, 10 

Post-Kantians, three groups of, 183 

Poynting on guidance, 212, 253 

Pre-established harmony, 55 

Pre-existence, 36 

Priestly, 89 

Primitive Animism, i 

Prince, Morton, 367 

Protagoras, 16 

Protozoa, behaviour of, 258 

Psyche and pneuma, 28 

Psychic fringe, 302 

Psychical fusion, 297 

monism, 133 

examined, 160 

poverty, 368 

Psycho-neural correlation, 116 
Psycho- physical interaction, 228 

■ continuity, 294 

Pythagoras, 14 

Rationalism, dogmatic, 74 



384 



BODY AND MIND 



Reflex process, 105, 224 
Reid, 84 

, Archdale, 357 

Restitution of organs, 241 

and Darwinism, 251 

Rhode, Erwin, on lonians, 12 

on Greek Animism, 9 

Ribot, T.,*302 

Roberts, E. J., on Plato, 18 

Romanes, J. G., 93 

Scepticism, 27, 88 

Schiller, F. C. C., 85, 359 

Schoolmen, early, 33 

Scratch-reflex, 266 

Seat of soul, search for, 99, 299 

Semon, R. , on Lamarckism, 247 

Sensation and meaning, 345 

SetisoriiiDi Coinniune, 25, lOO, 286 

Sensory qualities, evolution of, 279 

"Separable forms," 35 

Sheol, 7 

Sherrington, C. S., 266 

Sidgwick on Kant, 200, 203 

Skill, acquirement of, 320 

Solipsism, 134, 180, 185 

Soul, vegetative functions of, 373 

Spatial meaning, 307, 386 

Specific energies, 289 

receptors, 265 

Speculative philosophy, 79 
Spencer, H., 85, 121, 288 
Spheral intelligences, 40 
Spinoza, 57, 112 
Spirittis, 37 

animalis, 38 

vitahs, 38 

Stahl, G. E., 77,95 
Statistics and mechanism, 232 
Stewart, J. A., on Plato, 19 

, Balfour, 253 

Stigmata, 351 
Stoics, 26 
Stokes, Sir G. , 253 
Stout, G. F., 123 

on feeling, 321 

Stream of consciousness coherent, 164 
Strong, C. A., 123, 135, 164, 222 
Structure of the mind, 330, 166 
Stumpf, C., 83, 160 

on interaction, 208 

Subconsciousness, 173, 368 
Substance, 364 

attack on, 61 

defended, 162 

Survival of death, 195 

implies Animism, 202 

■ and empirical evidence, 348 

Sylvius, 96 

Synthesis, mental, in instinct, 264 



Tait, p. G., 253 

Taylor, A. E., 85, 180 

Telegram-argument, 267 

Teleology, statical and dynamical, 244 

Telepathy, 349 

Telesio, Bernardino, 43 

Tertullian, 29 

Thales, 12 

Theism implies Animism, 194 

Theophilus of Alexandria, 37 

Thomson, Sir J. J., 210, 216, 253 

Thorndike, E. , 319 

Thought and brain-functions, 113 

not necessarily spatial, 210 

Threshold of consciousness, 141, 295 

Time, post-hypnotic appreciation of, 353 

Total reactions, 260 

Transmission-theory, 358 

Transubjectivity of physical world, 185 

Treviranus, 81 

Trial and error, 260 

Trichotomy, 7, 28, 30 

Tropisms, 259 

Truth, two forms of, 38 

Tylor, E. B., 2, 4, 16 

Tyndall, 121 

Ueberweg, 27, 32 

Unconscious cerebration, 109, 229 

consciousness, 172 

psychical process, 141 

Unity of consciousness, 168 

Vaihinger, 196 
Values, 329 
Vesalius, 44, 99 , 
Vitalism, 78, 81 
Vives, Ludovicus, 41 
Vogt, K., 98 
Voltaire, 74 
Vries, H. de, 249 

Ward, James, 85 

on subjective selection, 247, 255 

on idealism, 184 

Wasps, 263 

Weber's law, 139 

Weismann, 119 

Willis, 100 

Wilson, E. B., on ceil mechanism, 236 

Wolff, Chr., 73 

Wolff, C. F., 77 

Wordsworth's poems, 316 

Wundt, W., 154, 331 

on primitive Animism, 5 

on causation, 177 

on creative synthesis, 305 

Ziehen, T., 108, iii 

on memory, 331 



TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH 



